Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!uhccux!ames!ncar!boulder!ccncsu!olender From: olender@cs.colostate.edu (Kurt Olender) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: Why learn Tex? Message-ID: Date: 15 Mar 90 18:52:06 GMT References: <90059.234829GILLA@QUCDN.BITNET> <597@s3.ireq.hydro.qc.ca> <1508@cybaswan.UUCP> <1170@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl> <1621@tuegate.tue.nl> Sender: news@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU Followup-To: comp.text Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80525 Lines: 23 In-reply-to: wsinpdb@eutws1.win.tue.nl's message of 13 Mar 90 16:19:24 GMT Paul De Bra writes: > Let's assume that LaTeX needs approx 5 MIP per page. That means that processing > a 100 page document takes 500 MIP. A not too experienced typist easily types > 2 or 3 characters per second, meaning that you need 1000 ro 1500 MIPS to > provide true WYSIWYG performance for LaTeX. (This assumes that one does not > use any tricks to avoid reprocessing the whole document for every character > that is entered/deleted/changed. > I doubt that a Cray will do. > Paul. > (debra@research.att.com) I think you've got your math mixed up. 1 page = 60 lines x 60 characters/line = 3600 characters (roughly) 1 typist at 3 chars/sec takes 1200 seconds, or 20 minutes to type a page. 1 typist at 100 wpm (~10 cps) takes 6 minutes to type a page. I think that you can write a LaTeX and a display tool that can process a page in less than 6 minutes. It seems to take only about 1 or 2 seconds for LaTeX and perhaps at most 3 seconds for texsun (per page) on my Sun 3/50, admittedly not the most powerful thing around.