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- Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!news.claremont.edu!hmcvax.claremont.edu!dhosek
- From: dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu
- Subject: Re: Can pc users benefit from DosTex? -> maybe
- Message-ID: <1992Aug16.143605.1@hmcvax.claremont.edu>
- Lines: 70
- Sender: news@muddcs.claremont.edu (The News System)
- Organization: Harvey Mudd College
- References: <1992Aug04.235021.1349@disk.uucp> <1992Aug6.145632.1355@id.dth.dk> <SCHLI.92Aug7133548@alaspin.cs.tu-berlin.de>
- Date: 16 Aug 92 14:36:05 PDT
-
- In article <SCHLI.92Aug7133548@alaspin.cs.tu-berlin.de>, schli@cs.tu-berlin.de (Wolfram Schlickenrieder) writes:
-
- > nmouawad@waterloo.edu (Naji Mouawad) writes:
-
- >> rjc@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley) writes:
-
- >> Erik Plesner (ep) writes:
-
- >> ep> o Runs out of space when documents reaches a reasonable size.
-
- >> What a combination, DOS memory brain damage and TeX memory brain
- >> damage at one and the same time :-).
-
- Of course a reasonable TeX implementation doesn't encounter this.
- I don't think DOSTeX is even maintained anymore. emTeX, PCTeX and
- $\mu$-TeX all can use EMS, leaving sbTeX as the only current TeX
- implementation to have the limit described.
-
- >> Another option would be to switch to Os/2.
- >> Consider the following configuration:
-
- >> 32megs of ram expandable to 64, with IEsa bus.
- >> 80486 running at 50 Mhz
- >> 1.2 giga-bytes hard-drive with under 10 musecs access/seek time
- >> Ati Ultra with 1meg on board sram, plus crystal fonts technology to
- >> produce on the fly scallable fonts as small or as big as necessary.
- >> 15inch Multisynch non-interlaced 1024x780x256 colors.
-
- >> What's wrong with such a configuration ? [...]
- >> Pc's aren't bad. Looking at them at certain angles is.
-
- > Ok, I'll tell you, what's wrong with such a configuration: I'd
- > get two Sparc2 Suns for the same price you paid for your
- > box!!!
-
- I recently priced 486/50 EISAs and found that I could get the
- above configuration at 8M RAM+200M HD for about $2500. Add in the
- extra ram and hard disk will put one out maybe another $2500
- (being generous to the vendor). Total cost for this monster
- system is then, say $5000. Most people can make do with the
- smaller figure but still, I'd like to know where you can get
- Sparc2 Suns for $2500. Does that include niceties like an
- operating system? How about availability and cost of software.
- While it's what I make my living from, I do need to have more
- than TeX and EMACS running on my system. But still, if Sparcs can
- be had for $2500 at a non-educational price with the monster mem
- and hard disk above, I might be interested in buying one
- (assuming that I could find the desk space).
-
- As for good platforms to run TeX on, Blue Sky can now get some
- ridiculously large number of pages of the TeXbook processed in
- one second on a Mac Quadra (it's either 4 or 40, I forget which,
- but even 4 is impressive). Of course the description of a Mac
- Quadra as an "ordinary everyday Macintosh" at the TUG meeting is
- a bit misleading (what do _those_ go for these days).
-
- For bang for the buck, I still think that an Amiga is probably
- the best TeX platform available, although with Tom putting some
- work into it, the NeXT TeX implementation might have begun to
- catch up with AmigaTeX by now.
-
- -dh
-
- Don Hosek
- dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu
- Quixote Digital Typography
- 714-621-1291
-
-
-
-