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[forsyth@minster.york.ac.uk forsyth@minster.york.ac.uk]

>>Plan 9 on intel. Can you set up an auth server, file server using intel? 
>>Last I heard, there was support only for the mips/sparc machines as 
>>fileservers.

it isn't on the CDROM, but given /sys/src/9/pc and a little background
knowledge, producing /sys/src/fs/pc wasn't too hard.
producing 9pccpu (CPU server configuration) is even easier.  any cpu server
can be used as an authentication server, so that's that!

(thanks to the Labs we are back in the `use the source' era!)

a 486dx2/66 seems quite a bit faster than a Sparc Classic; i use a dx2/66
as a CPU server, and even with a 24Mb classic as a terminal i tended
to do (cross)compilations on the 486.  i use a very lowly 16Mb 486sx33
as a file server (it doesn't use floating point).  it's adequate for
a small number of users (certainly not the bottleneck at present).

>>The problem with PCs is that if users have them on their desks, most of them 
>>want/demand Windows.

i was expecting that many people here would replace old Suns by PCs to run Windows,
because they don't program much (or they like Visual Basic),
so the intention wasn't to preclude that,
BUT for those who preferred a Unix environment i thought it might be
nice to consider more interesting hardware than Sun provides.

of course, the PC configuration will be chosen to allow people to
run Linux, Amoeba and of course Plan 9 if that takes their fancy.
as cs.wisc.edu!bob observed, the faster Intel and non-Intel clones are
competitive in performance and usually much cheaper than equivalent
RISC machines:

>>I highly recommend the new Pentium machines. For under $US4k you
>>can get a machine that is very powerful (~40mips, 32Meg mem, 540M disk).

it's also nice on the PC to be able to plug in a wide range of cheap special-purpose
cards (although register-level programming information isn't always available).
furthermore, most fast PCs come with a reasonable amount of fast
second-level cache, which can make a difference.

even so, i don't think the 386/486 architecture has got enough truly
general purpose registers for some things i'd like to do
(not really enough for basic bitblt, come to that).
the 64k banking of most non-PCI graphics cards is also a disincentive, and
makes graphics implementation harder and slower.  on a more personal level,
i get dizzy every time i get near the register level programming of SVGA.

90 and 100Mhz Pentium machines, especially with PCI,
should make very good, cheap file and CPU servers.
there are even multi-processor variants.
in those applications weak graphics performance matters not a bit.

unless you are considering graphics or multimedia work (both of
which interest me a bit) and possibly floating-point
intensive work (traditionally a weak area for Intel machines),
the underlying awfulness of the Intel architecture doesn't appear at all
with either Plan 9 (or Linux, come to that), and with those
exceptions i'd certainly consider a fast PC as a Plan 9 terminal.
(in fact, i use a 486 at home.)
it is indeed hard to match the price.