Hi John, you say:
Remember that **any** Intel based product release this year
will by necessity 32bit. Any hope of compatibility with your
64bit O2000's is thus negated.
I don't run -64 executables most of the time. I run -n32, which
runs on the O2s as well. Irix6.3 on the O2 is a 32 bit OS, isn't it?
(yes, the R5K is a 64 bit chip, but the OS itself is 32-bit-mode,
or not?).
Look's like you're not being abandoned -- and if you're **very**
price conscious the Linux Pentium II's make fine X terminals, or
you can "CAD Duo" the Octane for two local users.
Let me be clear: I pay for them with your money. Do you
want me to be **very** price conscious or not? If not, feel free
to write to your congressman about the NSF budget. In any case,
typical small scale simulations here run about half as fast
on a 1.5K$ PentiumII box as in a 5K$ O2. Half as fast for one-third
the money. Then they run three times faster on an Octane than in
the O2, but then again it's four times the money. So they are
not just fine X terminals: they run our stuff at a sixth of the
speed of an octane for 1/12th the money.
WRT to buying a large cluster of PII boxen, I agree it's inconvenient,
noisy, and can be very slow on some problems. And the HEAT, God! the
heat!!! But three years ago I would not dream of it, and now it's
becoming a definitely attractive possibility, and in one year...
Marcelo |
