Aucbvax.2424
fa.works
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works
Thu Jul 23 23:01:58 1981
More on configuration
>From BHYDE@BBNG Thu Jul 23 23:00:22 1981
Let me repeat some of the phrases in the replies to my query on
configuration.
From Steve Crockers message;
"the cost of the separate packaging is less than the cost
of multiplexing several users onto ... larger ... machine."
"things do remain centralized, an properly so: file servers,
high quality printers, long distance communications, ...
maintenance ... system development ( hardware and software )"
"classical time-sharing ... forces overloading of the machine
... this can be seen as miss management... with computation
tied to terminals it becomes ... impossible to add people
without adding capacity."
"transition from small task fitting on a work station to a
larger task ... will be ... painful."
From Hank Walkers message;
"disk drives fancy printers are about only things left with
economy scale ... might as well chop everything else into
little pieces, it makes the incremental cost smaller."
attributed to Gordon Bell
"center people frequently ... power-mad, bureaurocratic."
"are you worried about you car sitting idle?"
"fancy graphics needs a lot of local processing .. (then the
cost of) ... adding general purpose computing ...(is) ..
essentially zero."
Forgive me for the paraphrasing and quotation out of context.
I find quite convincing the point that baseline services; communi-
cations, graphics processing, and packaging make the marginal cost
of a substantial piece of computing power in the office trivial.
No ones seems to argue for the demise of the computing center, I
had expected people to argue it would be replaced; on the low end
by work stations and on the high end by external service firms.
People seem to believe that central facilities, file servers etc.
will remain within the organization.
As an aside the comment about cost of multiplexing into the central
facility seems odd considering the huge increase in cost of communi-
cations that local networks imply verses front ends. Any one want
to argue the other side of that one? No one has explained to me
yet why the hugh bandwidth is a good thing in the local computing
environment?
I have believed that the leverage available in purchasing larger
machines was very substantial. If I build out of a fast expensive
technology I get a power of ten improvement in my cycles for a
linear increase in my cost. If I build out of many processors
I get a linear increase in power for a linear increase in cost.
Have I been stupid and mislead?
If this is true than, disks, fancy printers, communications, and
fancy processors will go in the central facility. The work station
design will be aligned on a cost effective boundary one up from
that amount of power necessary for graphics, communications, and
work space management.
I find the comment about cars rich in metaphorical implications;
there are many people who believe that cars are a very poor piece
of social engineering. Do organizations have more capital tied
up in the parking lot than they do inside? Unsafe at any speed?
Ben Hyde
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