Aucbvax.4708
fa.editor-p
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!editor-people
Tue Oct 27 16:04:27 1981
Re: Hardware and Editor Technology
>From cbosgd!mark@Berkeley Tue Oct 27 14:51:58 1981
1-2K for a personal workstation, eh? Do you have in mind that each
student should buy one in the same way that they buy textbooks now?
(Don't laugh - considering the potential market for used processors,
rentals, sharing among students, and libraries, this is quite reasonable.)
If there is no disk, you REALLY depend on the central computer - you
really have an expensive terminal that can give you better response
in the editor. I'd rather spend the extra money (above the $700 it
would cost to buy an h19) on making the real editor faster, something
that can be done with tuning and by not writing your editors in TECO.
(Vi gives excellent response on a loaded system, since the binary is
shared among 60% of the users on the system, and thus is always resident.
UNIX EMACS editors also seem to give very reasonable response.)
I think it may be worthwhile to spend the extra $500 for a floppy drive
(or even two) and pass out/sell floppies with whatever the class
requires. This way you don't depend at all on whether the central machine
is up, how much money is in your account, or getting a dialup, yet the
student can work at home at whatever hours are most convenient.
It even makes a modem a frill, although I can see benefits of having the
student have his micro dial up the central computer weekly for updates,
announcements, test data, even listings.
The biggest problem I see is that nobody makes such hardware, and there
has to be a big demand for it (e.g. several universities requiring
students to make it) to justify developing it. Sort of a chicken and egg.
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