DECstation 3100

[Eric Engquist [CoE]]

I have a question of either Jim Gettys or Ricky Palmer.  (or for that matter
any one else out there)

The DECstation 3100 is extremely fast.  However, has anyone tried to use
the server model of it to support a large user base?  In particular we
have some old 780's with a user population of 1000.  Usually about 20 or so
are logged in via dumb terminals doing simply tasks, such as vi'ing, 
fortran, C, pascal compiles.  (e.g. work a freshman - junior level
engineering student would do)

If I have a decstation 3100 with 24MB of memory and 1.5Gb of disk, how many
users could I support concurrently on this machine?  rough estimates are fine.
My personal guess would be 2-3 times what the 11/780 could.

Also, on a related subject.  Suppose I want to support some X-windowing
terminals on this system.  The users are doing the same type of things.  How
may X window terminals could I reasonally support per a fully loaded DECstation?
Also, if I build a lab with 2 Decstation 3100's and 20 xwindow terminals, should
I hide that ethernet behind a Lan Bridge. (i.e. is the network traffic 
going to be unreasonable.

I will probably find these answers out myself shortly, but any insight
can be extremely helpful.


						Thanks,
						Eric Engquist
						Univ. of New Mexico
						College of Engineering
						eric at sybil.unm.edu
						(505)277-5501

---Oh shit!  You did it just like I told you to...