SS2 and Xterms

[Bill Hart]

We have a SS2 GX with 6 labtam x terminals (1 colour) hanging off it (I
imagine this would be equivalent to 8 or 9 mono x terminals). We have been
running Open Windows 2.0 which is a bit of a memory pig, and the SS2
originally only had 16 MB in it. Since we added another 16 MB it seems to
work pretty well. The machine is used for some fairly heavy
computationally intensive work, and does ok (so long as you don't run out
of memory) multiuser.  It is a much more impressive machine for multiuser
stuff than a SS1 or SS1+, (also much better than any of the IBM Risc
offerings), as it has 16 hardware context switches (as opposed to 8 for a
SS1 which makes them really bad for multi user stuff). Of course you could
buy a 470 which has 64 context switches but costs much more.

If you are going to buy one, my recommendation would be buy a 16" mono
Sparcstation and add your own disk+ memory (I think you will find this is
much cheaper I can buy 1.2 GB wren VII for ~$4000, and 4MB simms for
~$385) and stick as much memory on as you can. Make a very large tmpfs
(use the "swap on /tmp" option) and increase the number of users specified
in the kernel to 16 or 32. It might also be worth while considering buying
NCD X terminals as they have the motif window manager built into the
hardware (which saves a process etc...) if you want to run motif.

Other alternatives are something based on a R3000A (I think the R4000 will
be a while yet) from either Mips (Mips magnum) or from SGI. These should
do the job quite nicely.  If you want any more info, let me know

Bill Hart				Internet : hart at ocean.ml.csiro.au
CSIRO Division of Oceanography		Phone : +61 02 206 446
Hobart, Tas., 7000 Australia		Fax :   +61 02 240 530