Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!netcomsv!wigen
From: wigen@netcom.COM (Patrick L. Wigen)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Amdahl's Rule
Message-ID: <1991May19.025126.24526@netcom.COM>
Date: 19 May 91 02:51:26 GMT
References: <48qO01yL75GS00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  UNIX System {408 241-9760 guest}
Lines: 20

In article <48qO01yL75GS00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> terry@uts.amdahl.com (Lewis T. Flynn) writes:
>There was a discussion in this group recently concerning Amdahl's Rule
...
>I guess the most useful thing to conclude from this is that the first
>rule of processor design is "Know Thy Workload". The second most useful
>thing is that there's no substitute for lots of research and
>measurement.
>
>Terry

I do alot of work with many different systems mostly workstations lately
and whiel most people recommend roughly following Amdahl's rule (and are
probably not aware of it) I have noticed that doubling that figure
is usually most efficient. For example a Decstation 3100 that runs at
~12-14 MIPS running decwindows (X) runs much better with 24 MB of memory than
the usual recommendation of 16 MB. This is just a casual observation hoewever
and is not based on emperical data.

Patrick L. Wigen		wigen @netcom.com
no .sig yet.......