>   It's also important to realize that today's computer industry
> creates a *perceived* need for insane amounts of speed, where such a
> need rarely actually exists.  A 200MHz Pentium is orders of magnitude
> faster (until it's asked to do lots of multitasking, anyway) than an
> older VAX...but take, for example, a VAXstation 3100/M38.  It's a
> roughly 3.8 MIPS machine.  Slow by today's standards, but plenty fast
> enough for a low- to medium-traffic web server, or a mail server, or
> something like that.  They actually work pretty damned well.

I'd have to agree...  I've got 6 users connected, two compiling large
programs, three BitchX (gotta love that name) sessions - two of which
are 'screen'ed, ircd 2.9.4, Apache 1.2.4, running a load average of 2.40
with 4 out of 16mb physical ram free and only 2mb swap in use...  All my
FreeBSD-running friends are VERY impressed and ask what I got in this
thing - they think its something from outer space :)

This is all on one single VS3100/M30 with two 100mb hds and the entire
OS and boot off of a FreeBSD box (NFS performance ROCKS) and its great..
I'm gonna be drooling all over when the scsi performance issue is fixed
with the M30 SCSI driver :)

I'm fixing to go fire up the other three, the room is starting to get a
bit cold (they don't put out a LOT of heat, but enough to keep this room
warm with the 6 other x86 boxes and 4 monitors, stereo, etc :)

Laterz,
Jacob Suter
<J4k3-VAX:#FreeBSD> I got leet VAX shellz!
(and now everyone wants one)