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From: hsu@eneevax.UUCP (Dave Hsu)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Query: Symmetric's 375 computer
Message-ID: <154@eneevax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Sep-86 10:31:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: eneevax.154
Posted: Fri Sep  5 10:31:59 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Sep-86 22:17:37 EDT
References: <173@grpthry.UUCP>
Reply-To: hsu@eneevax.UUCP (Dave Hsu)
Distribution: net
Organization: Imperial Widget Research Center, Kingdom of Maryland
Lines: 46

In article <173@grpthry.UUCP> ylh@grpthry.UUCP ( ylh ) writes:
>Symmetric in California recently advertise in various magazines
>(Byte, Unix/World) their '375' computer.  It is based on
>the 32016, has 2 Mb ram, 50Mb winchester, 4 serial ports,
>runs 4.2BSD and is loaded with languages (C, Pascal, Fortran,
>Prolog, APL).  All for just $4,995.
>(plus GnuEmacs, TeX, SPICE for $10 each!).
>
>We ran a battery of benchmark programmes and found that it
>performs at the level of a microPDP11/73.  Seems a little
>poor for a 32016-based machine.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Y L Huang, grouptheory systems incorporated            (613) 594 0227

When Symmetrics demo'd the 375 for us last winter, we fed it the
Dhrystone and found the performance to be about as you noticed;
somewhat anemic for a 32016.  The pricing, by the way, was closer to
10k list, if I recall.  The compile time itself was rather long; about
as fast as my (obsolete) Unistar 200.  Their rep said at the time that
Symmetrics was still using the early NS compiler, which was evidently
building excessively modular and threaded code, and killing the machine
on every subroutine/loop/what-have-you call.  He also noted that
(1) Symmetrics was almost ready with a 32032-based product, and that
(2) they were trying to ready a less cumbersome compiler.  Your
observations tend to indicate that the compiler is roughly the same as
it was a year ago, and that the 375 has changed market position
slightly.

The unit, however, has some good points, though.  Firstly, although it
lacks a built-in terminal, it makes a nice luggable, being about the
size and weight of an ordinary benchtop oscilliscope.  Secondly, the
port of Unix seemed to be rather well done, and nicely 4.2ish.
Thirdly, as Symmetrics claims in their literature, it would make a good
TeX/troff/mdqs server, although at the time the pricing was not good
enough to justify buying a 375 over a Sun, although at $4995 it sounds
a lot more appetizing.

-dave
-- 
David Hsu  (301) 454-1433 || -8798 || -8715	"I know no-thing!" -eneevax
Communications & Signal Processing Laboratory	/ EE Systems Staff
Systems Research Center, Bldg 093		/ Engineering Computer Facility
The University of Maryland   -~-   College Park, MD 20742
ARPA: hsu@eneevax.umd.edu    UUCP: [seismo,allegra,rlgvax]!umcp-cs!eneevax!hsu

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