CAIMBRE, MARK ALWIN E.

COE121/B3 HOMEWORK

Computers have been classified into 3 main categories I mainframes, minicomputers, and
microcomputers. Mainframes are of course the large computers which service hundreds of people
at a time and cost millions of dollars. Minicomputers have arisen during the past 15 to 20 years
and are typically capable of handling many tens of people at a time. These types of computers
are both multi-user, that is, able to have many people working on them at the same time.
Microcomputers originated about a decade ago and are largely designed to be dedicated to a
single person, thereby earning the designation single user. In the past decade, minicomputer
costs dropped to the point where some "larger" small businesses could cost justify such systems
as tools for improved business management. While the microcomputer retailers yearned to
compete in this new lucrative billion dollar multi-user industry, the limited processing power and
single-user limitation of microcomputer technology prevented this. The microcomputer industry
addressed this problem in two ways. One was to put several microcomputer processors (or brains)
into a single computer system (multi-processor system). The other was to connect several
individual microcomputers together (the Local Area Network or LAN) to allow them to share
information.
Even newcomers to the computing technology arena are aware of the need for software
(or programs) to make a computer useful. Most of the multi-processor systems use an operating
system called UNIX (or ZENIX, which is almost the same) or a proprietary one specific to a single
company. The use of microcomputer LAN's also requires the purchase of costly LAN software.
Both of these solutions will add several thousands of dollars to the cost of a small business multi-
user system.
80386 Technology
The significance of the new 80386 processor lies in the fact that it is the first IBM-type
microcomputer processor to have sufficient power to support multiple users practically.
The operating system used with a computer is the basic program required to make the
computer able to understand and carry out basic functions. Basic functions are those such as
"reading" the keyboard, putting information onto the screen, copying files, deleting files, printing
information, etc. The most popular operating system currently available for microcomputers is
known as PC-DOS as supplied by IBM or MS-DOS as supplied by Microsoft; these are essentially
the same product. All of the popular programs many have heard about, such as Lotus, Dbase,
Multimate, WordPerfect, FrameWork etc., run as application programs in the MS-DOS
environment.
The MS-DOS operating system is a single user product. LAN or networking systems
provide computer hardware and special programs which run with MSDOS to allow several
individual microcomputers to exchange information as needed. This creates a multiuser
information shared environment. To take full advantage of LAN's, special versions of many
popular microcomputer application programs are available. The major expense in all of this lies
in the LAN hardware and the LAN programs which do the information exchanging. The special
versions of Dbase etc. which are bought are not unusually expensive.
The multi-processor or multi-brain microcomputers tend to use UNIX or some proprietary
operating system. This operating system is multi-user and relative to MS-DOS is much more
expensive. While some new technology is now available to allow running MS-DOS applications
in the UNIX world, multi-user MS-DOS operation inside of UNIX is not yet here.
 UNIX costs (about $1500 for a micro) are similar to those of the LAN solution. One
difference with UNIX is that the application products (i.e. wordprocessing, database, spreadsheet,
etc.) are much more expensive and there* is a more limited, although improving, selection to
chose from. Far fewer vendors in the small business sales arena handle UNIX software since
there is as yet a much smaller market.
The cost of UNIX and LAN software are about the same, so the cost difference between
them usually lies in the cost of the applications software. In the case of "vertical market"
applications such as veterinary systems, costs for both types of systems will be quite high. The
UNIX-based veterinary system will usually be. Somewhat more expensive because UNIX product
development costs are higher than those for MS-DOS products.
UNIX is availabe for 80386 based systems but has a high system cost. UNIX has a lot of
"administrative overhead" which causes of lot of extra work for a computer. This can cause a
microcomputer system, especially when several users are working hard at once, to slow down if
its capacity is marginal. Typically, a UNIX-based system needs to be more powerful to deliver the
same effective response to the user compared to a LAN or some less complex streamlined multi-
user system.
While not yet well known, several new multi-user operating systems for the 80386
microcomputer have appeared on the market. These operating systems are extremely attractive
because of their streamlined multiuser operation, price (less than $900) and because they can
run MS-DOS programs. Two of the better advertised and reviewed offerings are Concurrent
DOS/386 from Digital Research and PC-MOS/386 from The Software Link. Both companies have
been around for several years and can be relied upon for continued product support.
Many readers may have heard references to a new operating, system called OS2.
Veterinarians need not concern themselves with it yet as OS2 is an 80286 or AT operating system
currently designed as a single user, multi-tasking system. That is, it will allow only one person at
a time to use the microcomputer but that person may run several programs at the same time. It
is largely designed and will be marketed to, large corporations where staff have their micro-
computers connected to mainframe or large minicomputers.
Important Multi-User Features
Any worthwhile multi-user system should include most of the following features as
described for PCMOS/386. Product references are not intended as endorsements but result from
in-depth product experience with this new software technology. Competitive products certainly
warrant consideration.
1) PC-MOS/386 combined with a multi-user database management system designed for
a LAN allow shared access to all of the veterinary practice information from all of the work stations.
2) Client/patient/accounting records being modified are locked for the change and
released immediately after automatically. This ensures that when new information is being
entered into a record, everyone else must wait to see that record until the changes have been
completed. Records not being changed are available to all users.
3) Individual stations can be limited in their access to designated portions of information
on the hard disk. This allows the veterinarian to keep confidential information on the system and
to limit the information made available to certain users of the system.
4) Designated work stations can be given priority access to the computer's shared time to
ensure rapid processing of point-of-sale invoices, etc.
 5) All reports and other activity directed to the printer are rapidly stored away by the system
so the program never waits on a printer to print a report.
6) Printers can be attached to distant terminals and need not be attached to the central
computer box.
7) Printing which requires different types of paper or forms to be put in the printer (e.g.
labels, reminder notices, etc.) can be printed at any time during the day and will be held by the
system until an operator releases the print work after loading correct paper.
8) Full security including individual user identification and passwords is available.
9) Any terminal or microcomputer connecting to the system via the telephone line
becomes another workstation.
10) Any terminal can use and run several programs at the same time limited only by the
security system.
11) Most MS-DOS programs will run under PCMOS/386 including the most widely sold
MS-DOS software packages. The ones that have not behaved well are generally communications
programs and those which do very special things and are not "well written".
12) The commands in PC-MOS/386 are largely the same as those in MS-DOS with a few
changes such as one would expect for the additional features.
13) Actual clinic use combined with professional software development work (which is
known to be much more demanding than veterinary clinic information retrieval) on this system
with three concurrently operating work areas did not significantly impede point-of-sale invoice
processing.
Microcomputers and Development
Microcomputer use is quite different in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa,
and Asia. The information revolution has been lately introduced in these countries, but seldom in
agricultural production. Agricultural applications of microcomputers in developing countries were
not thought to be a priority until recently. The first two publications about computer uses in
development (United Nations, 1971; Taylor and Obudho, 1977) did not even mention agricultural
uses. A change occurred slowly during the 1980s, mainly with the help of certain development
agencies and international institutions, who foresaw the potential of microcomputers in Third
World development.
In a book published by the International Labor Office (ILO) (Shalla and others, 1984), 76
separate applications in 33 developing countries were identified among the development projects
of the U.S. Agency for International Development (US AID) and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA). However, no sound data are available about the extent of diffusion of
microcomputers in developing countries. The ILO book stated that, "The 6 experience [of the ILO]
with assessments of projects shows that very little if any systematic data-collection is done on a
regular basis. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate the success or failure of
the projects or experiments in the light of any systematic criteria or quantitative parameters."
Microprocessor Performance and Trends
The number of transistors available has a huge effect on the performance of a processor.
As seen earlier, a typical instruction in a processor like an 8088 took 15 clock cycles to execute.
Because of the design of the multiplier, it took approximately 80 cycles just to do one 16-bit
multiplication on the 8088. With more transistors, much more powerful multipliers capable of
single-cycle speeds become possible.
 More transistors also allow for a technology called pipelining. In a pipelined architecture,
instruction execution overlaps. So even though it might take five clock cycles to execute each
instruction, there can be five instructions in various stages of execution simultaneously. That way
it looks like one instruction completes every clock cycle.
Many modern processors have multiple instruction decoders, each with its own pipeline.
This allows for multiple instruction streams, which means that more than one instruction can
complete during each clock cycle. This technique can be quite complex to implement, so it takes
lots of transistors.
Trends
The trend in processor design has primarily been toward full 32-bit ALUs with fast floating
point processors built in and pipelined execution with multiple instruction streams. The newest
thing in processor design is 64-bit ALUs, and people are expected to have these processors in
their home PCs in the next decade. There has also been a tendency toward special instructions
(like the MMX instructions) that make certain operations particularly efficient, and the addition of
hardware virtual memory support and L1 caching on the processor chip. All of these trends push
up the transistor count, leading to the multi-million transistor powerhouses available today. These
processors can execute about one billion instructions per second!