[rescue] x86 power question

[Sheldon T. Hall]

 Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote ...

> In 1979 I worked at a place that had a dual processor IBM 
> 370/168 mainframe with 5 meg of RAM. Huge fast multimillion
> dollar machine. 

The year before that, we were buying timesharing cycles on a similar
machine, to run a CPM scheduling program for a big construction job.  Our
stuff was run as a background job on a "time available" basis, but our
monthly timesharing bill was still about $17,000.

That same year, we bought three TRS-80 Mod II computers and a Corvus 5 MB
networked hard drive ... for about $17,000.

In 1979, we released a suite of construction management and accounting
applications, including scheduling; the whole package, including a TRS-80
Mod II to run it on, cost far, far less than $17,000.

In this business, time does not march.  It sprints.  And it's bloody fast.

-Shel