Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!prls!pyramid!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga outclassed
Message-ID: <10298@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 22 Mar 90 08:27:12 GMT
References: <90078.164636JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu> <11886@vdsvax.crd.ge.com> <53218@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 34

In article <53218@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> jac@muslix.llnl.gov.UUCP (James Crotinger) writes:

>  BTW, I was very impressed with the speed of the windowing interface
>(ie Multifinder). It appeared to be much more responsive than X11R4 
>running on my SparcStation. 

Most versions of UNIX aren't really set up very well for a single user
on a GUI based workstation.  They just aren't responsive enough.  Add
to that the client/server nature of X (one of its best features, by the
way, but a bottleneck) vs. the Mac's quickdraw (a series of subroutines)
and it's really no surprise the Mac appears more responsive.

>They were running it on a IIfx, but that is still probably a factor of 
>2 less horsepower than the sparc. 

I wouldn't bet on a factor of two difference, if Apple did their job on
the 40MHz '030 and support hardware.  At least for integer operations,
the '030 won't be all that much slower.  For floating point, I'd expect
the SparcStation to be 3x-5x the '030/'882 speed.

>They ran a spirograph line drawing demo and it was blazingly fast. 

If they're using the smart display card, they may be running a CPU with
MORE integer performance than the SparcStation's SPARC.  That 29K is
a little weird, but it's plenty fast.  Also a register-window machine,
like the SPARC.

>  Jim


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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                    Too much of everything is just enough