And it's just as Steve described: running VnmrX remotely via Ethernet and
X-Windows is faster for most operations than using the Sun console. In my
case, the PC is a Compaq 66 MHz Pentium running XVision 6.0 and Windows 3.1.
The Sun is a 55 MHz Sparc-10 running SunOS 4.1.3.
Steve McKenna
Amoco Research Center
Naperville, IL
stmckenna@amoco.com
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Steve Patt wrote:
> Bill Stevens wrote:
>
> > I will appreciate any advice. The chemists seem to want the computer
> > facility to be PowerMacs and not Unix workstations. I am not sure of myself
> > here, but it seems we have options of either ftp-ing the data to the Macs
> > and processing it there with some non_varian product or using the Macs to
> > establish X-windows sessions on the spectrometer host computers and
> > processing there.
>
> I will offer the following information. I have a PowerMac 7100/80 running
> eXodus 5.2 (PowerPC native). With this configuration running off a SPARC 10
> host computer running VnmrX 5.1, most operations are actually FASTER than
> they are when sitting at the SPARC 10 itself! When I first saw this I rubbed
> my eyes and thought I must have done something wrong, but on reflection it
> makes perfect sense. After all if the Sun alone is being used, it is functioning
> as both the X client and the X server. With the PowerMac in the picture, it
> is now the X server, so that the system as a whole functions as a multi-processor
> computer. True the two processors are connected via Ethernet, not via some
> internal bus (e.g., M-Bus), but given typical NMR operations (display a 1D
> spectrum, do an expansion, etc.) the Ethernet is not the bottleneck (obviously,
> YMMV depending on Ethernet traffic).
>
> This observation is NOT true on earlier Macs, even on my Mac IIfx, but definitely
> so on the PowerMacs. The difference I allude to above is small, but the
> important thing is that it is not in the negative direction, that is, the Mac
> users don't suffer any penalty.
>
> Plus they get to have a Mac. :-) Which once they get out of your university
> and into "industry" will at least give them some "good old days" to think back
> on. ;-)