Smart Multiport Board

[Paul De Bra]

In article <192 at lakesys.UUCP> jamesd at lakesys.UUCP (James Dicke) writes:
>
> ...
>P.S.  I have heard that while SCO boast that they can support up to 16 users
>that it is really an imposablity with a 286 or even a 386 without modified
>busses.  We plan to run a mutli-user game which will be the user's only
>shell.  Is it at all possiable?  Is 8 users more realistic?  What hint/help
>can you give on this subject?  (Note: we in no way are going to attempt to
>run more then 8 users on the 286.)
>...

It all depends on what you expect. Many years ago at a poor university we
had one 8Mhz 68000 box with one slow (65ms) 40Mbyte disk and Unix System III,
which was constantly used by 10 to 12 users doing development in C, and
using vi as editor. It worked (the disk had to be replaced every 6 months
though) and we were reasonably happy with this system.

I ran a "simulation" of 15 users on a 12 Mhz 286 box (with sufficient memory)
which showed that this AT-clone was about 5 times faster than the old 68000.
So the AT can easily handle that many users, and the performance degrades
almost linearly too. But like any other single processor machine even with
linear degradation the 15 user system will be 15 times slower than the single-
user system.

So maybe your users won't be able to share a 286 machine without killing
each other but the machine will certainly be able to handle 16 users (albeit
slowly).

Paul.

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