Re: Scheduled Transfer Protocol on Linux

[Nathan Hand]

On Sat, Feb 12, 2000 at 06:00:21PM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> Whatever, I'm sure my experience is very boring, but that same experience
> says that it is very doable to put an embedded processor down on the
> drive and ship it at at a profit for an extra $100.   It won't have
> much memory, probably 8MB, at that price, but can definitely be done.
> Don't underestimate the power of volume.  And customers will deal with
> having to buy extra memory.

I have zero experience in the hardware side of things, so I'll not try
and argue the point with you (I'd lose horribly). I certainly hope you
are right though. I'd love a 3.5" server for $300. I'm imagining small
DNS servers, small mail servers, small log servers, etc.

I'm guessing what will really happen is that a drive manufacturer will
use a different embedded OS and Linux will quickly be ported to it.

> : Yup. 100mhz Pentium and motherboard is literally $50, including case and
> : NIC and RAM. 
> 
> That's extremely misleading for this topic.  You are confusing the
> "limited to stock on hand, customer limited to 1" throw-away-at-a-loss
> price with production prices.  I'll personally kiss your ass in public
> in front of rolling cameras if you can show me a supplier, today, right
> now, who will deliver 10,000 units of 100Mhz pentium, 16MB, motherboard,
> case, 100baseT, guarentee a DOA rate of less than 2%, and guarentee a
> run rate of an additional 10,000 a quarter.

Ugh, more graphical than I needed to hear, but you're right. 

-- 
Nathan Hand - Chirp Web Design - http://www.chirp.com.au/ - $e^{i\pi}+1 = 0$
Linux users aren't rebelling, we've already won - All Hell Can't Stop Us Now