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Subject:Which computer for a contractor? From:Alexander Von_obert <avobert -at- TWH -dot- MSN -dot- SUB -dot- ORG> Date:Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:49:00 +0100
Hello Gail,
* Antwort auf eine Nachricht von egail -at- TELEPORT -dot- COM an All am 23.07.97
ee> I specialize in writing about software
so you need at least two (possibly networked) computers: One with the
application on it (your old faithful 486 might suffice for that) and one where
you write the manual of the application.
The best way to cut corners is at the CPU level: Get a Socket 7 (Pentium)
motherboard with split-voltage supply and the cheapest CPU you can find. Put
as much money as you can into the rest of the machine - perhaps excluding the
disk drive. And get a BIG screen.
If you work the usual power-user way with several BIG application open, a 100
MHz Pentium with 64 MB of RAM is cheaper and faster than a 200 MHz MMX CPU
with
16 MB of RAM. And within a year the CPU prices will have dropped a lot and you
can double your muscle then.
Hard disks get cheaper and faster, too. You might consider to buy a second
disk quite soon, because a well configured system with two disks can have its
speed advantages: If you store your applications on one drive and the swap
and temporary files on the other head movements are greatly reduced:
- A program decides that it needs to open another module.
- Windows (or OS/2 or ...) finds that it needs to swap out
some memory pages to the swap file to make room.
- The new modules is loaded and started. It allocates some more
memory.
- Windows finds that it needs to swap out...
- You change to another open program.
- Windows finds that it had swapped out some of that module's memory
and needs to get it back...
ee> I want a system that will support the widest base of potential
ee> clients as possible.
This is more a software than a hardware problem. I would get some basic
software and buy the rest when a customer threatens to give you a specific
job.
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