Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!nstn.ns.ca!news.cs.indiana.edu!samsung!think.com!mintaka!geech.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: A3000UX - Born to run UNIX SVR4 Message-ID: <1991Feb9.063711.17280@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 9 Feb 91 06:37:11 GMT References: <1512@pdxgate.UUCP> <1991Feb9.032953.14709@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1519@pdxgate.UUCP> Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius) Organization: None Lines: 90 In article <1519@pdxgate.UUCP> hal@eecs.UUCP (Aaron Harsh) writes: >In article <1991Feb9.032953.14709@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >> What makes you think an 040 NeXT will be competitive with an 040 Amiga >>when the inferior NeXT with inferior color and expansion capabilities >>cost the same? > > The NeXTstation has no color and no expansion [slots] available. But >looking through Amiga World (yeah so what if I read it, Amigas still suck :-) >all the expansion cards I see fall into three categories: [deleted] > 2) Video things (genlocks, Toaster, etc.) > The Amiga is a much better multimedia machine than a NeXT. If you're > going to be using a lot of video, go with an Amiga. If you're going to > want to use a really fast machine and an incredible programmeing setup > you should go with a NeXT. Ok... The $10,000 question is: Once the Amiga has an 040, what advantage has the NeXT got in speed? If the Amiga is running AmigaDos, none. If Unix, probably not much. [deleted] >> Reworded, it sounds the same. The slab is virtually useless. The $3200 >>model is almost unusable. An A3000 with an 040 running AmigaDOS wil >>burn rubber for speed. The NeXT is bogged down with UNIX's overhead and >>Display Postscript. Even the A3000UX with an 040 will probably beat the >>040 NeXT because it doesn't waste so much CPU on the interface. > > As CPU speed increases and display overhead stays the same, amount of >time spent on display aproaches 0. Yes, but the 040 is only 3 times as fast as the 030. Your example of CPU->infinity, time->0 only works for orders of magnitude speed improvements. The 040 ISN"T a quantum leap above the 030 like NeXT users believe. > Maybe an '040 3000UX will beat a NeXT, but I doubt it. It will do better >at video, but not at number crunching. Someone posted some benchmarks >comparing A3000 and NeXTCube (030 model) a while ago.(I think that was >in the pre-advocacy days). The NeXT was a little faster than the Amiga. Yea, by about 100 drystones, and I believe that was a 25mhz Amiga vs a 28mhz NeXT. Drystones aren't a very accurate benchmark anyway. > You probably haven't played with one of the new NeXTs. They're speeded >up a lot. You can even format disks while you're downloading a file :-) I can do this and more on my 7mhz A500. >> Try doing Live video teleconferencing on the $3200 slab like CBM did >>on the A3000UX demonstration. > > Yep, the Amiga is better with video. > Try doing raytracing in any reasonable amount of time on an Amiga. Try >designing a functional graphical interface to one of your programs in a >half hour on an Amiga. Hogwash, I'd put LightSpeed3d w/25mhz 040 Amiga up against ANY NeXT ray-tracer. What makes you believe an 040 NeXT will run faster than an 040 Amiga? If the Clock speeds and CPU's are the same, performance will be about the same. The 3000 has an extremely efficient bus design. You act as if the NeXT will be an order of magnitude faster than the Amiga. The difference between the two in a ray-tracing competition will be measured in seconds, not minutes. Besides that, AmigaDOS has FAR less CPU overhead than Unix does. So I have every reason to believe an A3000 w/040 will run faster than a NeXT. My A500 already proves that by updating the screen faster than a 386 or NeXT does. As far as designing an interface for a program. I can design an interface for an entire application in less than 10 minutes with PowerWindows. Gadtools under 2.0 will probably give the same advantages. And as for uses of the Amiga's expansion slots, besides the stuff you listed, how about: 1) Multiple serial port cards 2) Graphic card enhancements 3) Extra processors for multiprocessing 4) An I/O sampling board 5) Fax Card 6) Different network cards (besides Ethernet) 7) Adding different types of drives/devices besides SCSI 8) >32mb of ram (who knows, some people may need more in the future) 9) DSP's, like the newer faster DSP's, or i860's/88000's Having an 040 is nice, but a 50mhz 68030 doesn't make its advantage significant. And it's only a matter of time before OTHER computers like Macs and Amiga's start shipping 040 cards. Answer me this question, how does a slab owner upgrade his CPU for a faster version/bigger cache/68050? Does the Slab has a CPU card slot, or will he have to SELL the slab and buy another configuration? >Aaron Harsh >hal@eecs.cs.pdx.edu