Re: on and off topic re purchase of new pc with dos for xywrite

[J R FOX jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

--- "Patricia M. Godfrey"  wrote:

> J R FOX wrote:
> > The next time around, I think I'm
> > going with Plug-In, Plug-Out drive trays, one type
> of
> > OS per each.

> That sounds like a workable and simple way to go,
> except that it still
> requires rebooting, and booting is the slowest thing
> a modern PC does

Yes, but I think that the only way you might avoid
rebooting is with a VPC or VMWare type of emulation
setup. The Guest or Client OS is then actually a
special partition (image) that is invoked by the Host
OS. There are various Pros & Cons associated with
that solution -- even assuming one has a high enough
horsepowered system to overcome most of the emulation
penalty. I've seen this done -- just don't know if
I'd want to go that way.

When I'm working in eCS, I might not need to reboot
for long periods of time. In Windows, one may need to
reboot after applying each security patch, or after
installing a new program. But I don't often find
myself going back and forth between the platforms: I
tend to be working on one side of the street or the
other. Each platform runs Xy, but it is definitely
more comfortable and involves less compromise to run
Xy on the OS/2 side.

> And when I've looked at this option, the specs
> seemed pretty
> complicated: there seemed to be umpteen types of
> trays and no clear
> explanation of which drives went with which trays.

Yes and no. There are your cheap plastic trays, and
different quality aluminum ones, often with integral
fans. For each type, there are trays supporting the
different interface types -- SCSI (not widely used
anymore, and those trays are by far the most
expensive), regular ATA / IDE, and I'm sure there must
be SATA ones now also. If you check more closely, you
will find that these are rated for different speed
hard drives. That is, if you're going to run 10K RPM
speed drives, best to try to get a tray that is rated
to support them. Or so I've been told.

> By the by, Jordan, the two Asus mobos we got for the
> office both have
> AGP slots. AMD CPUS, though, if you dislike them, as
> I think I recall
> your saying you do.
> --

Not me. I'm leaning towards AMD x2 dual core. It
might wind up being a one or two year old mobo model,
though. I'm determined to get the feature array that
I want (like more PCI slots, and AGP). Even if this
drags down overall performance here or there, it will
still be a great deal faster than what it is
replacing. And I'd rather go with a proven, mature
design, than ride today's bleeding edge.


 Jordan