Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site alberta.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ubc-vision!alberta!bjorn From: bjorn@alberta.UUCP (Bjorn R. Bjornsson) Newsgroups: net.micro.16k Subject: Re: Re: National's 32332 Message-ID: <921@alberta.UUCP> Date: Wed, 28-May-86 20:50:43 EDT Article-I.D.: alberta.921 Posted: Wed May 28 20:50:43 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 31-May-86 00:08:55 EDT References: <746@usl.UUCP> <253@spar.UUCP> <2793@sdcrdcf.UUCP> <1768@gitpyr.UUCP> <2020@hammer.UUCP> <1796@gitpyr.UUCP> <438@geowhiz.UUCP> Distribution: na Organization: U. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB Lines: 79 In <438@geowhiz.UUCP> larry@geowhiz.UUCP (Larry McVoy) writes: > I have a few comments & questions. > > 1) The story I have heard (albeit from sources that I don't view as gospel) > is that the 32016 (in the symmetrics box) is s*l*o*w, about 1/4 a 68010. > Is that true? You would be well advised to put even less faith in your "sources", for even though I cannot answer for the Symmetrics box, the Dhrystone results speak (with the usual truck load of salt) for themselves: |*----------------DHRYSTONE VERSION 1.0 RESULTS BEGIN-------------------------- |* |* MACHINE MICROPROCESSOR OPERATING COMPILER DHRYSTONES/SEC. |* TYPE SYSTEM NO REG REGS |* -------------------------- ------------ ----------- --------------- |* Colex DM-6 68010-8Mhz Unisoft SYSV cc 378 410 |* Apollo DN550 68010-?Mhz AegisSR9/IX cc 3.12 666 666 |* Cadmus 9000 68010-10Mhz UNIX cc 714 735 |* Cadmus 9790 68010-10Mhz 1MB SVR0,Cadmus3.7 cc 720 747 |* Burroughs XE550 68010-10Mhz Centix 2.10 cc 769 769 CT1 |* ATT 3B2/300 WE32000-?Mhz UNIX 5.0.2 cc 735 806 |* Apollo DN320 68010-?Mhz AegisSR9/IX cc 3.12 806 806 |* IRIS-2400 68010-10Mhz UNIX System V cc 772 829 |* IRIS-1400 68010-10Mhz UNIX System V cc 909 1000 |* NSC ICM-3216 NSC 32016-10Mhz UNIX SVR2 cc 1041 1084 | ------------- |* ATT PC7300 68010-10Mhz UNIX 5.0.2 cc 1041 1111 |* Sun2/120 68010-10Mhz Sun 4.2BSD cc 1136 1219 |* MASSCOMP 500 68010-10MHz RTU V3.0 cc (V3.2) 1156 1238 |* Cyb DataMate 68010-12.5Mhz Uniplus 5.0 Unisoft cc 1162 1250 |* Sun2/120 68010-10Mhz Standalone cc 1219 1315 |* Sequent Balance 8000 NS32032-10MHz Dynix 2.0 cc 1250 1315 N12 | ------------- |* IBM PC/DSI-32 32032-10Mhz MSDOS 3.1 GreenHills 2.14 1282 1315 C3 | ------------- |* Cyb DataMate 68010-12.5Mhz Uniplus 5.0 Unisoft cc 1470 1562 S > 2) Another story I hear a lot is that people *claim* that the 32xxx chips are > fast, but independant tests show that the claims are consistantly false. > Can anyone comment on this? I'd prefer to hear from people who: > A) are not associated with National Semiconductor > B) are using a unix workstation based on a 32xxx chip set. See Dhrystones above. People with access to 32000 based workstations from Tektronix, Intergraph & Whitechapel, etc., would be ideal candidates for expanding on this questions. For floating point fans, it's probably a save bet that the 32k based systems outperform most existing (ie. excluding 68020/68881) 68k systems. Some concrete figures on this would be of interest. > 3) I've heard that the 32xxx series of CPU's are binary compatible. If this > is true, are they pin compatible? The real question is: can I buy a > symmetrics box, pull the 32016 and replace it with a 32032 or 32332? I'm not sure what you mean by "pin compatible". If you mean signal and electrical compatibility, the answer is basically yes. There would however, be absolutely no point in replacing the 32016 with a 32032, as they are identical save for the CPU bus interface. You would need a modest amount of logic to make a 16 bit data bus look like a 32 bit bus (with possible degradation in performance). The 32332 is a different story. Since it has dynamic bus sizing, it could indeed easily replace a 32016, with an increase in performance due to the deeper prefetch queue and separate ALU/Shifter in the address path. A small adapter board containing the 32332, could be plugged into the 32016 socket, although you might need to bring an auxiliary power source onto the board, to satisfy the 32332s greater power requirements. P.S. You can find some benchmark results for 32032 IBM-PC add-on board in a recent issue of UNIX/WORLD. Bjorn R. Bjornsson Department of Computing Science University of Alberta