On Sat, 11 Jan 2003, James K. Lowden wrote:

> I notice the compiles are practically silent.  I guess I have plenty of
> RAM versus CPU, else swap or compiler I/O would chatter more.

Or possibly you're lucky and have generally quiet disk drive?  Well,
wait until you hit a big C++ compile, that should certainly put you into
swap.  The Seagate ST1480 which just died in mine was a bit on the noisy
side.  Most of the older drives tend to be that way.

> Who needs top(1)? :-)

A few years ago I was doing a lot of builds on a MicroVAX-II with an
RD54 (160MB MFM drive), and that generated quite a racket.  It was in my
bedroom, and I could hear it clearly from the living room, even with my
bedroom door closed.  It was a great way to monitor the progress of
compiles; I knew they'd finished when the drive went quiet.

I also have an RA81 (456MB SDI drive) that I've not yet had the
opportunity to power up for use in a large MicroVAX-II rack.  I'm not
sure what they sound like during drive accesses--maybe someone here can
comment?--but it's a big drive at 19" across, 11" high, close to 27"
deep, and weighing in at somewhere around 150lbs.  It's not quite as
impressive the RM02, RM03, or RM05, but it's still big.

I like my computers to "GRARRR!"

-brian.