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From: housen@ssc-vax.UUCP (Kevin Housen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Why is Excel 2.2 is a magnitude (or two) slower than Excel 1.5
Summary: Excel 2.2 is also slow on the MacII
Message-ID: <2986@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 15 Nov 89 21:30:47 GMT
References: <7940@ditmela.oz> <4016@ur-cc.UUCP> <14211@jumbo.dec.com>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics, Seattle WA
Lines: 23


Several people have noted the slowness of Excel 2.2, principally
on 68000 based machines.  Well, the same is true for the 68020 (at
least the MacII and accelerated MacPluses).  We have been using
both 1.5 and 2.2 and have been thoroughly disgusted with the 
performance of Excel 2.2.  Contrary to the advertisements, version
2.2 runs significantly slower than 1.5 (a factor of 2 to 3 slower in
the tests we ran).  We found some cases where both versions ran
at about the same speed, but these were rare.

As an example, one of our typical applications of Excel uses a 
worksheet with, say, a couple hundred rows and 20 to 30 columns.
This sheet may use some information from another (very small) 
worksheet.  This runs about a factor of 2 slower in 2.2 compared
with 1.5.

Version 2.2 is slower not only because it recalculates slower, but
also because it recalculates more often than 1.5.  It also seems
to be slower in opening files at times.  If it werent for the fact
that version 2.2 lets you print with thin lines on the Laserwriter,
it would be Frisbee time for my Excel 2.2 disk.

Kevin Housen