Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!neoucom!wtm
From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 486/25 Power Platform for PS/2 70-A21
Summary: Don't forget about slow peripheral devices
Keywords: Intel 80486, PS/2 70, AIX, cost
Message-ID: <1682@neoucom.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jul 89 13:32:41 GMT
References: <19000@gatech.edu> <991@hydra.gatech.EDU> <8032@mtune.ATT.COM> <2342@aecom.yu.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Lines: 25


What IBM [probably] forgot to show you was a real application that
used a lot of I/O: something like a Microsoft C5.0 compile or
something that did a lot of output to the screen.

I have a feeling that timing a C compile with a stopwatch would
yield speed-up of about 1.5 on the PS2/70 with the 486 daughter
board.

Mind you, that isn't exactly chopped liver, but that is pretty
expensive with the projected list price of slightly less than $4K
(US) for the upgrade.  These days, you can get an entire PS/2 model
80-171 (16MHz) system (if you can find a dealer with one in stock)
for about that much.  The price of the upgrade is somewhat
ameliorated by the fact that the 486 contains the equivalent of the
80387 FPU; this effectively discounts the cost of the upgrade by
$500, assuming that you'd like to have the FPU chip in your
system.

Curious that the 486 board came out for the model 70, rather than
the model 80.  So much for the 'flagship' of the PS/2 line, I
guess.  (Somewhat nonplussed, as I have a model 80).

Bill
wtm@impulse.UUCP   or   wtm@neoucom.UUCP