Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!ziploc!eps
From: eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Memory
Message-ID: <1720@toaster.SFSU.EDU>
Date: 15 Jun 91 06:21:29 GMT
References: <1991Jun14.125927.18256@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Reply-To: eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)
Organization: San Francisco State University
Lines: 52

In article <1991Jun14.125927.18256@neon.Stanford.EDU>
	zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu (Andrew Zimmerman) writes:
>I would be interested in getting some hard numbers on how much faster a 
>16 meg machine is compared to an 8 meg machine. Opinions that I have heard
>range from "worlds of difference" to "doesn't help at all".  
>
>I would guess that whether memory helps r doesn't help is largely a function
>of how you have your machine set up and how you use your machine.

Uh-huh.  For example, if you change /etc/ttys to run a getty on
the console, and dispense with all the NextStep stuff, 8MB might
actually be viable.  A machine running 2.0/2.1 "doing nothing"
wants 13MB *real memory* in order to keep the "overhead" stuff
resident--more on a Color machine.  That doesn't leave much
breathing room for Apps.  An 8MB machine is *guaranteed* to
thrash in normal use.  All the MIPS in the world don't make a bit
of difference if the processor is waiting for pageins.  Faster
disk transfer rates and smaller seek times don't do YOU a heck of
a lot of good if the drive is constantly paging instead of
accessing YOUR data.

>Please do not take the above comments to mean that I don't believe Scott and
>EPS when they say that more memory helps.  I am considering purchasing more
>memory, and want to know if it will make the machine respone that much faster.
>As such, I would like to understand the context in which Scott and EPS are
>making their claims.

There's a strange schizophrenia about comp.sys.next...
"More MIPS!  More MIPS!  RISC this, RISC that.  Power, power,
speed, speed, speed!  Faster, faster, FASTER!!!" along with
"but *I* can live with 8MB, *I* can live with 200MB disk, *I*
can live with 2400 bps modems, it's OK if it takes 4 minutes
to print a page, 10 minutes to log in, it only takes a
hundred floppy disks to back up my files..."

There's a certain point of diminishing returns, granted,
but it's a lot closer to 32MB than it is to 8MB.

If I'm running Terminal+Edit+Librarian+IB (not an unusual
combination), there's an obvious difference between 16MB and
20MB.  If I'm just running just one of those, there isn't--but
that's not normal!  Once you learn that you CAN run more than one
App at a time, and that it's advantageous to do so (especially
considering how well-integrated things are), it's hard to imagine
using the NeXT like a you-know-what computer.

Q. Who'd want a sports car with a motorcycle-sized fuel tank?
A. "Who cares, if you get laid."

Sigh...

					-=EPS=-