Aucbvax.2379
fa.works
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works
Mon Jul 20 09:51:18 1981
Re: Configuration
>From Crocker@USC-ISIF Mon Jul 20 09:36:54 1981
Ben,
I don't think it's a fair reading of the present situation
to suggest that computer centers are "going away" in favor
of personal workstations. A better view is that the computer
center is becoming distributed and more easily incremented.
A lot of this is dependent on the specific cost of providing
service in any given technology. Today's costs make it
relatively cheap to provide a noticeable amount of computing
power to each person in the form of an individual workstation.
This means that the cost of separate packaging is less than
the cost of multiplexing several users onto the same (large)
machine. It's quite possible for this to shift back the other
way, though not likely, in my opinion.
Several things do remain centralized, and properly so:
a) file servers, high-quality printer/plotters,
long distance communication;
b) maintenance;
c) system development (hardware and software).
Your scenario of using a service in Chicago with overnight air
service is not only reasonable but entirely usual. There are
indeed services that are expensive enough to absorb the cost
of long-distance delivery. Various forms of fancy printing,
as you mentioned, is one; transcriptions of stenographic tapes
is another. I'm sure there are others.
Getting back to individual workstations, my own view is they
offer one big plus and one important trap. The big plus is
that the economics of adding a new user to "the system" is
much clearer. The classical time-sharing environment essen-
tially forces overloading of the machine, and we commonly see
environments where only the trivial tasks can be done during
the day and the heavy-duty tasks are delayed until evenings
or weekends. Unfortunately, it's these heavy-duty tasks that
are the reason for the facility and the people in the first
place. (Yes, I know this can be seen as a straight case of
mismanagement. Nonetheless, it's where things are.) With
computation tied to terminals, it becomes essentially
impossible to add people without adding capacity. (There's
always the possibility of "sharing" workstations. This may
be useful in some cases, but it will be clear to all that
when a person does not have access to the workstation, he
does not have access to anything. Compare with today's
situation where everyone has a terminal, but that doesn't
guarantee access to anything substantive at all.)
The trap in all this is there is a far sharper limit on the
size of the task that can be carried out with a workstation.
A lot of important tasks use more of the cetral facility than
the nominal capacity that is being doled out in workstations.
That will mean that transition from a small task fitting on a
workstation to a larger task that requires a different machine
will be relatively painful.
Steve
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