Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!equinox!jimi!reed!whitney
From: whitney@reed.cs.unlv.edu (Lee Whitney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: 486SX - Intel now telling lies
Message-ID: <1991Jun3.153413.18726@unlv.edu>
Date: 3 Jun 91 15:34:13 GMT
References: <1991May30.164751.16585@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov> <1991May31.183111.16505@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Jun2.030215.11584@unixland.natick.ma.us> <1991Jun2.172907.2373@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Sender: Lee Whitney
Organization: UNLV Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Lines: 34

>From: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen)

>   The counter point is that RISC perf won't stand still either.  But systems
>will (or have they already) get to a point were the typical application for
>a user level, is being held up by the user, not the system.  I'd have to say
>that for most DOS direct applications, anything more than a 16 Mhz 80386 is
>a waste of money.  In a windows environment, I'd say between 20 & 25 Mhz the
>same is true.  

WINDOWS 3.0 does not need speed past 25Mhz?  What !?!  40Mhz is even
too slow for Windows!  Have you ever used Corel Draw? Ventura?
Anything?  Even with a (fast) graphics co-processor Windows is not too fast.

>That isn't to say that 'killer' 33 Mhz or 486 systems are a
>total waste, but to say that for most user applications (wordprocessing, 
>spreadsheets, etc) the overall system performance increase is much less
>than the increase in money.  That includes factors as disk i/o and user
>typing speed....
>al

People always underestimate the power required for these basic tasks.
Let's just take word processing, that seems the simplest, and pair it
with the fastest desktop computer in existence, the HP 9000 series.
Overkill right?  Imagine wp software that composes your document as
you speak.  Imagine wp software that has real grammar checking.
Imagine not waiting to rasterize and print a 1200dpi page...

All that has to happen is for this kind power to be affordable (which
probably won't be long), and for software to be developed
(maybe OS/2 5? :-]).

Then Al, people will be waiting to buy 80 mips machines for their
secretaries, let alone what they will buy for people who need
"real power".