Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Re: Re: A3000UX Seems Fated (Kill file alert!) Message-ID: <17197@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 7 Jan 91 21:22:54 GMT References: <1990Dec25.045537.13517@NCoast.ORG> <1990Dec25.234322.836@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <17091@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991Jan07.054805.13284@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 50 In article <1991Jan07.054805.13284@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes: >In article <17091@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >>In article <1990Dec25.234322.836@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes: >>>NEITHER the Amiga 3000 or the ISA machine will make a good server. For that >>>you need a real system bus, such as VME. >>The A3000 bus, like EISA and MCA, isn't all that slower than full 32 bit VME. >Ah, but it depends on how good of a job you can do interfacing with that >bus. The VME people have a lot of experience with it, and they do a hell of >a job. The "PC" people, whether ISA, EISA, MCA or Amiga, all seem to be >more interested in shaving $5.00 off the price of the card than they do >performance. That tends to be true. You do get good Zorro II bus designs for the Amiga, but since that bus is so slow, it's no big deal. Same with the basic ISA bus, I imagine. VME has been around for a long time, and the mere existence of PCs has forced the performance of VME devices up the scale of things, both in performance and cost. And PCs have only recently grown 32 bit multiple mastered buses, while most VME systems have been doing that for some time. So sure, VME (and Multibus, etc) are more mature. They pretty much have to be, at those prices. >>Hmmm, I'm sure all them folks with RS/6000 systems would be a little surprised >>by that comment. >RS/6000s use 3Com boards for Ethernet the last time I looked. 3C523s. >They are DOGS. I have worked with one, and it did something like >150KB/second of real throughput doing real work (ie: serving up an FTP >file). That's terrible! Sorry, but 15% of the cable bandwidth doesn't cut >it folks! As I recall, the Personal Workstation folks seemed quite impressed by the I/O capabilities, if not the CPU speed claims, on the RS/6000. Its SCSI, on the MCA bus, was one of the fastest they've tested. I thought the Ethernet was too. It depends alot on your Ethernet load, too. We have days around here where the VAXen and big MIPS machines on our network have trouble hitting 15KB/second in ftp. Other days they move along quite fine, though Ethernet's never as efficient as the Apollo network, even with those little 68020 based Apollos. You don't need much CPU power to have a fast network, just a good network design and a good network implementation. >Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, !ddsw1!karl) -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, gonna be alright" -Bob Marley