Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hplsla!tomb
From: tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: PasTeX performance on 68000 Amiga
Message-ID: <18790012@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 15 May 91 15:59:06 GMT
References: <8288@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 20

I wrote:
> 
> From memory:  running the .tex documents provided with PasTeX and Michael
> Doob's "A Gentle Introduction to Tex" (about 100 pages) through virtex
> took between 1 and 2 seconds per page.  The resulting .dvi file took
> _much_ longer to print on my LaserJet IIP.  I assume most of the printing
> time is time to transfer about a megabyte across the parallel interface
> (but at that, it seems kinda long...)    The previewer, I suspect because
> it deals with much lower resolution fonts and doesn't have to use an i/o
> port, is considerably faster per page of output.
> ----------

Well, so my memory is a bit foggy.  I reran "Gentle", which exercises a
lot of the native features of TeX, being a tutorial, but does not use any
macro packages.  "gentle.tex" was in ram:, and "gentle.dvi" was written
to ram:, this on a stock 7 MHz A-1000.  It took 14 seconds to spit out
the first page, then five additional minutes (within a couple seconds) to
process the rest of the document, 96 pages in all.  That seems to be
about 1/3 page per second, 20 pages per minute.  Again, that time is
very short compared with the printing time.