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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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