What does one get into when buying a Unix PC?

[Thad P Floryan]

Addressing another part of James E. Ward's question ...

Most of the GNU software operates just fine on (an expanded) UNIXPC.  By
"expanded" I mean one with 2MB motherboard RAM and a "reasonable" HD.
I use GNU Emacs, gcc, bison, etc. daily.

The GNU software WILL work on a minimal system.  In fact, the system I was
demo'ing at the last West Coast Computer Faire had but 512K RAM (with two
512K expansion RAm cards) and a 20MB LaPine 3.5" HD and this machine was
running ALL of ("simultaneously"):

   The STORE! graphics demos
   The AMAZE game
   Mahjongg
   GNU Emacs
   GNU gcc

The po' lil' disk was thrashing like crazy, but it (subjectively) was still
faster than mainframes I was using 20 years ago!

Uprgading RAM to 2, 3.5 or 4MB and adding larger HD (80 - 190 MB) makes this
beast scream.  All these upgrades can be done yourself if you're handy with
[de-]soldering tools and can follow simple HW instructions

Thad Floryan [ thad at cup.portal.com (OR)  ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]