Computers used my members of the Arabidopsis group

[Mike Cherry 726-5955]

Recently I was curious about the distribution of computer system types
used by people on the Arabidopsis list so I used the HINFO field of the
DNS to check the Internet addresses from the last list Chris Somerville
posted before the BioSci switch.  The DNS is the electronic distributed
database of computers on the Internet. 

First here is the distribution for all subscribers.  There were 94 of
the addresses were for hosts that did not have a HINFO entry or were
Bitnet. 

Number		Computer	Operating System
=========	===========	=================
4		Convex		Unix
1		Facom		Unix
2		HP		Unix
2		IBM		VM
4		IBM		MTS
12		IBM		VM/SP
4		IBM		VM/CMS
20		VAX		Ultrix
47		VAX		VMS
1		Next		Unix
2		Sequent		Unix
19		Sun		Unix

Totals:
Unix	49	41.53%
VMS	47	39.83%
IBM	22	18.64%
		
Then removing multiple addresses for a single machine I got:

Number		Computer	Operating System
=========	===========	=================
3		Convex		Unix
1		Facom		Unix
2		HP		Unix
2		IBM		VM
3		IBM		MTS
5		IBM		VM/SP
2		IBM		VM/CMS
5		VAX		Ultrix
16		VAX		VMS
1		Next		Unix
2		Sequent		Unix
12		Sun		Unix

Totals:
Unix	26	48.15%
VMS	16	29.63%
IBM	12	22.22%
		

It would appear that there are more Unix machines involved in receiving
mail for the Arabidopsis list but that about the same number of
subscribers use Unix as use VMS. 

I in no way wish to start a "my computer is better than your computer"
discussion on this list.  I just thought it would be interesting to see
what people are currently using. 

Mike Cherry
cherry at frodo.mgh.harvard.edu