Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!sco!seanf From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Evans and Sutherland quits the superbusiness Message-ID: <3893@scolex.sco.COM> Date: 23 Nov 89 21:25:24 GMT References: <1128@m3.mfci.UUCP> <1989Nov22.175128.24910@ico.isc.com> Reply-To: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) Distribution: usa Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. Lines: 44 In article <1989Nov22.175128.24910@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: >In article <1128@m3.mfci.UUCP>, rodman@mfci.UUCP (Paul Rodman) writes: >>...Let's ignore the fact that the Killer Micros usually don't have a >> decent memory system or I/O system... > >No, let's ignore it because it's not a fact but an incredibly biased >(and not particularly useful) opinion. What?! Uhm, I hate to tell you this, but the reason mini's provide much better throughput than micros was because of the I/O subsystem. A '286 is faster than a VAX (785, let's say), but, go multi-user, and there is no comparison: the VAX will get *much* better throughput (meaning: it may take three times as long to do your sieve of Erasthoneses, but swapping processes in and out, and doing any disk I/O, is going to go more than three times faster). This is because the '286 (a killer-micro, compared to a VAX 8-)) doesn't have the memory or I/O subsystems that the VAX does. Now, compare just about *any* system on the market today with, say, a CDC Cyber running NOS (or, deity forgive me, even NOS/VE). (Bet you were all waiting for me to mention those, weren't you? 8-).) As has been pointed out before, lots of people don't *need* 250 MFLOPS / MIPS on their desktop; they just need to shuffle data back and forth (that's why there's a TPS [Transactions Per Second] measurement; any commentary on that, John? Michael?). Without a decent I/O subsystem, you won't be able to do this. And the memory in most "killer micros" is defficient because I can't do *real* DMA (it tends to steal cycles from the CPU). (N.B.: some K.M.'s *do* have *real* DMA. I'm waiting for them to come out with *real* I/O subsystems [using, say, a 68000 as a PP]. Then they will scream, even compared to a Cyber.) >>...[Not to mention that their >> compilers and O/S are often not very robust...:-)] >Yeah, let's not mention that, since it isn't true. Some of the compilers available today are pretty amazing, especially compared to what was available just a decade ago. The OS's running on most K.M.'s, however, tend to be unix varients (or, deity help us all, DOS). This is not a terribly robust OS, nor a terribly quick one (asynchronous I/O would be really nice; there are some other things that could be useful). So, yeah, it is true. -- Sean Eric Fagan | "Time has little to do with infinity and jelly donuts." seanf@sco.COM | -- Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck), _Magnum, P.I._ (408) 458-1422 | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.