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From: orc@pell.chi.il.us (Orc)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
Subject: Re: a monthly FreeBSD magazine (and other *BSD's too)
Date: 6 Jan 1996 03:12:35 -0800
Organization: Mind-reading, super-smart bisexuals with silly names
Lines: 52
Message-ID: <4cllf3$7k8@pell.pell.chi.il.us>
References: <4ajc07$sb7@unix2.glink.net.hk> <4cdijr$hjg@toplink1.toplink.net> <4cfq48$9lg@news1.halcyon.com> <1996Jan4.140833.18166@wavehh.hanse.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pell.pell.chi.il.us
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:32243 alt.os.linux:6931 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:11577 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1733
In article <1996Jan4.140833.18166@wavehh.hanse.de>,
Martin Cracauer <cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de> wrote:
>Easy: How can you know you will not need more than one CD drive in the
>future. How can you know you won't have to use this CD-ROM on a
>workstation someday? Buying SCSI means to lower the possibility to
>trough away equipment because you can't predict the future.
I dunno; given the collection of widely varying new SCSI
proposals out there, what's the chance that your narrow SCSI
devices will be useful a decade from now? SCSI has had a
fantastic time of surviving and being upward compatable for
over a decade, but when you start seeing fiber channel,
differential, and so on variants of SCSI, the generic SCSI-1 and
narrow SCSI-2 devices out here start to have a somewhat doomed
look to them.
And it's not really fair saying 'use this CD-ROM on a
workstation someday.' The problem is that about 90% of the market
appears to be PC clones. Most of them can talk to IDE drives, so
the odds are that the workstation you might put them in will have
provision for IDE drives. And they _are_ absurdly cheap, which
is particularly annoying when you realize that, for some vendors,
the only difference between an IDE and SCSI disk is two or three
resistors, a cable connector, and firmware. If someone is
looking to build a single PC at home where they can eventually
donate ancient and elderly equipment to their children or
parents, it's very possible that SCSI devices will be the ones
that won't be used and will be thrown out (shoot, I'm evidence
of that; since I've abandoned IDE on the bulk of my workstations,
I've been able to give various HDs to friends who need a little
extra storage. On the other hand, the ancient and creaky Quantum
80S drive a friend bought for $800 the year they were introduced;
it still works fine, but there really isn't anyplace where it can
go to live out its declining years, so there it sits, next to the
dead 2.5" powerbook drive and a mighty 40mb PCMCIA drive.)
>>The ~$200 price difference could be better used for something
>>like a bigger hard disk, or more memory, or a better monitor.
>
>No, either *add* the $200 or buy more memory after a while. You can't
>upgrade your CD-ROM to SCSI after a while.
If you're building the system *now*, that $200 might be the
difference between getting a computer or spending the next six
months windowshopping.
____
david parsons \bi/ orc@pell.co^H^Hchi.il.us
\/