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From: bard@jessica.stanford.edu (David Hopper)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A3000UX - Born to run UNIX SVR4
Message-ID: <1991Feb12.080356.22413@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 12 Feb 91 08:03:56 GMT
References: <581.27a97594@vger.nsu.edu> <8298@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <1991Feb8.030757.22974@portia.Stanford.EDU> <1991Feb11.141219.4829@cc.helsinki.fi>
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In article <1991Feb11.141219.4829@cc.helsinki.fi> jalkio@cc.helsinki.fi writes:
>In article <1991Feb8.030757.22974@portia.Stanford.EDU>, bard@jessica.stanford.edu (David Hopper) writes:
>> In article <1991Feb7.151106.4795@cc.helsinki.fi> jalkio@cc.helsinki.fi writes:
>>>
>>>BTW, when you only benchmark a 68030 Amiga with 68030 NeXT you must take
>>>in to consideration that what NeXT lacks in speed it wins in
>>>flexibility... (Display Postscript, the programming/user interface).
>> 
>> Flexibility?  Did he say FLEXIBILITY?  The Amiga INVENTED flexibility.
>
>Could you be a bit more specific, please? 

I wouldn't think I needed to be, here.  But how about expansion capability?
How expandible is a SPARC?  How expandible is a NeXT?  It's been hashed and
re-hashed, but this is an absolutely valid point.  Expandibility IS an issue.
Always has been since the 1000.  That was a gripe of mine back then, too.
From processors to DSPs to graphics boards to sound boards-- it's a question
about the future.  Can you honestly say that the 040 Slab will *not* be
obsolete in five years?  With an open-ended architecture, I can say this about
the 3000.

>> I've been using an '040 NeXT for about two months now.  The thing's still as
>> slow as a dog, even when switching/moving windows.  What speed *is* provided
>> by bogging down the '040 (as Display Postscript will do) is completely lost if
>> it's networked to cubes (as the one I use is) and in page-flipping on a 100-Meg
>> hard disk.  The damn thing has taken a full *two minutes* to resize an .eps
>> pic.  Way to go, Jobs.  Them's some brilliant engineering.
>
>Sounds pretty strange. How can it be that 040 NeXT wins Sparcstation 1+
>on several benchmarks? 

I don't doubt that it does, if you take it off a network.

>Have you done any benchmarking on the 040 NeXT versus the fastest
>Amigas? 

I'm talking about the interface here.  I can honestly say that Display 
Postscript on my 040 Slab is SLOWER in look and feel than Intuition on my 
vanilla 1000 with a blitter.  Of course it's more sophisticated than 
Intuition in its pre-2.0 form, but for responsiveness, you can't beat 
Intuition.

>BTW, if you only mean that the interface seems slow, the reason might be
>that you have used a machine with only 8MB memory - that causes
>considerable virtual memory swapping. 16MB or more would make an end to
>that problem.
>
>As a final statement: Are you trying to convince the people that "040
>NeXTs are slow as dogs"? Sounds very funny.

I don't think I'm trying to convince anyone.  All anyone has to do is sit down
and use it for any length of time to SEE that the 040 is severely crippled by
Display Postscript.

>>>	Jouni Alkio, Helsinki, Finland

Dave Hopper      |      /// The Amiga:      | The great strength of the total-
                 | __  ///                  | itarian state is that it forces
bard@jessica.    | \\\/// The Cybernetic    | those who fear it to imitate it.
   Stanford.EDU  |  \XX/ Revolution is NOW! |               --Adolph Hitler