Re: Case Insensitive File Systems -- Torvalds Hates Them

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 03/06/2025 16:57, Rich wrote:

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

The cost of a SCO UNIX on a 386  with a multiport serial card and 50
Wyse terminals was unbelievably low.

 
Which was why they were deployed so widely.  This was of course before
the cost of "PCs" dropped to the point that it became cheaper to
'emulate' on a PC instead.

 
That in fact never happened.
 
IIRC a Wyse 50 was less than a hundred quid when PCS were never less
that £200 and still are not even without screens.Well a Pi maybe.
 
The serial  cards were a bit pricey and that why people ultimately
chucked them out for an ethernet card and  a switch.

Ah, didn't realize the cost difference remained, even in the face of
Moore's Law and extreme competitition in the clone market causing PC
costs to quickly drop by massive amounts.

In reality many many companies I dealt with would have been far more
profitable and efficient running restricted apps over serial consoles
than putting PCs on the desktops.

Agreed.

You cant fiddle with and break a serial CRT terminal easily

Nor can you 'distract' yourself with playing Solitare all day on $job
time (unless the CRT terminal host provided a solitare for you to
play...).