Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!apollo!rehrauer From: rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: NeXT Intro (Was ) Message-ID: <4d69e60f.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> Date: 15 Oct 90 14:42:00 GMT References: <1990Oct14.215059.12461@csmil.umich.edu> <38267@ut-emx.uucp> Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM Reply-To: rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA Lines: 45 In article <38267@ut-emx.uucp> greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) writes: >First of all, if I ever needed a reason to dislike Steve Jobs, I've got one >now. Using (M)isleading (I)ndications of (P)rocessor (S)peed has got to be >one of the most dishonest ways to benchmark a computer. Yes, but when everyone else talks in shades of green, sometimes you must, too. I assume they're quoting Dhrystone v1.1 MIPS, scaled relative to VAX 11/780 performance on same. Everyone does this; so? Actually, NeXT has in my opinion conservatively rated the NeXTstation's performance (based on my experience with, er, other brands of '040 boxes :). Kudos to them, if true (or tomatoes if their compiler is really that bad :). And sure, any single benchmark is misleading. Anyone with a brain listens for as many results on as many benchmarks as possible, and tries to fit that to what what he/she knows they'll use the box for. >Second of all, referring to the underlined phrase: Not even in Steve Jobs' >wettest dreams. The 040's fast, but it's no RISC. Uh-oh, another True Believer. I can assure you that a properly built 25MHz '040 system with decent compilers and runtime libraries will outperform a SPARCstation 1 on a wide variety of benchmarks, and bench equal to a 1+. 33 and 50MHz '040s are a block or so down the road. Yes, I know any handful of other RISCs will eat an '040 for breakfast, etc, etc -- my point is that RISC is only a philosophy, not a guarantee. A properly-built CISC can run rings round a poorly-built RISC. The '040 is a properly-built CISC. Who *CARES* which religious persuasion the underlying silicon holds to, if it delivers better performance? Pay attention to the facts, not the marketing dross. >Yes, friends, a $3000 option. And guess what? You can't upgrade a >NeXTstation to a NeXTstation Color... I observe that [a] the Mac managed to do quite well for years without color (with an icky 9" screen, too), and [b] for a lot of applications, a decent resolution grey-scale is good enough. Besides, "They" said you couldn't put a hard-drive in the original Macs; who's to say that if the NeXTstation is a big-hit, that some enterprising 3rd party won't come up with a way to retrofit color onto the basic slabs.. -- "I feel lightheaded, Sam. I think my | (Steve) rehrauer@apollo.hp.com brain is out of air. But it's kind of | The Apollo Systems Division of a neat feeling..." -- Freelance Police | Hewlett-Packard