In article <36DCBD46.F20C8628 at san.rr.com>, milton at san.rr.com wrote:
> Actually I have experience with many OSes, but I am trying to make a decision
> that impacts a large group of people. I want to accommodate all the
> essential applications used in Molecular Biology. The problem I'm having is
> that this field tends to be Mac and unix based. However, my gut feeling is
> to go with Microsoft products because of the global acceptance of the windows
> environment.
Ok Jeff. :-)
I can offer you a VERY impartial appraisal. Reason is, I prefer the
amazing Acorn RiscOS running on my RiscPC600 at home but use MacG3(mainly)
and sometimes wintel in work.
I would consider the MacOS as the most usefull in MolBiol. (The wintel
platform in my opinion has a dreadfull OS/abort retry fail). Besides, I
beleive a G3 can emmulate windows to Pentium90 speed. Also Microsoft,
well they have a good maketing dept. :-)
If you are going for a windows enviroment consider the SGI NT workstation.
I has implemented NT into the world of RISC computing and runs NT at 4x
the speed of a high end CISC Pentium.
To be honest I would not consider a non-RISC machine if you require speed
(BUT SEE * BELOW). AND Intel have now got the ARM "StrongARM" 233Mhz
chip(now at 388MHZ) RISC from an Acorn RiscPC. (This will run from two AAA
bateries and can be used in a PDA) I can see the demise of the Windows
dominance in general. The other alternative is to get a wintel box and put
Linux on it. This could co-host with Windows and you can run a Mac
Emmulator see
www.ardi.com.
*However the first consideration is WHAT DO YOU WANT IT TO DO? then WHAT
SOFTWARE DOES THIS then WHAT DO I NEED TO RUN THIS SOFTWARE.
Remember the computer is a tool to HELP you work. NOT to dictate your work. :-)
These views are my OWN and not gla.ac.uk
as I said I prefer something completely different. :-)
Cheers
Bob
--
Robert Hartley BSc(Hons)
Centre for Cell Engineering,
IBLS Division of Infection & Immunity,
Joseph Black Building,
University of Glasgow,
Glasgow.
G12 8QQ
Web: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Inter/CellEngineering
E-Mail rh at mblab.gla.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)141 3398855 Ext 2074
Fax: +44 (0) 141 330 3730
