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From: keithe@tekgvs.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: large file text editor
Message-ID: <2311@tekgvs.TEK.COM>
Date: Fri, 22-May-87 20:37:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekgvs.2311
Posted: Fri May 22 20:37:13 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 23-May-87 18:40:43 EDT
References: <119200008@convexs> <246@uvicctr.UUCP> <334@booboo.UUCP>
Reply-To: keithe@tekgvs.UUCP (Keith Ericson)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR.
Lines: 59

In article <334@booboo.UUCP> amir@booboo.UUCP (Amir Majidimehr) writes:

[regarding the MKS vi, and later the MKS shell...]

>Now, the new version fixes the bug with large files but is SLOW.  The
>screen update is about one line a second (in scroll mode)!  God knows

[OK - what *is* "scroll mode?" - kde]

>what made them slow it down. It still has bugs that can cause the system
>to crash (and erase your file) but you are hard pressed to find them.
>
>They could have a nice product but given the state of their Korn shell
>(the thing is darn unusable -- it crashes your system every four or 
>five commands!) and the vi, I hesitate to recommend this product to
>anyone.

I cannot let this go by unchallenged. I have MKS Toolkit version 2.1
and I wouldn't give it up for the world. (Well, the WORLD?!?! OK,
you can have my MKS Toolkit; it's a fair trade :-) ) The ONLY time
I've had my system hang up is when I've tried to install something else
strange on top of, or underneath, the MKS shell. Desqview has
problems; sometimes my Ethernet access seems to get in the way (but
so seldom that I can't pin it down on either, both, or an
unfortunate interaction).

OK, granted I'm not using vi as a program editor - I use it to write
ms scripts, shell scripts, whatever I want to use it for. I've never
had it crash on me. And I don't find it to be slow at ALL! I'm
running it on a 286 ATClone and find it comparable to vi on our
VAX-11/785+BSD4.3 system (even when rlogin'ed over a lightly loaded
Ethernet). 

OK - timings, you want timings: here - the file being edited is
approximately 577kbytes (the on-line company 'phone book).

					do ~6800
			Load File	replacements
VAX-11/785+BSD4.3:	 12 sec		  15 sec

8MHz 286AT Clone:	 22 sec		  65 sec (with lots of
						  disk access)
Next test (suggested by complaint of screen scrolling speed):
	Go to top of screen; hit the 'k' key 10 times: screen
	finishes scrolling in 3 seconds (not 10!).

I'm running from a Maxtor 2190 (via V-Feature Deluxe from Golden
Bow systems) with a 3:1 interleave so my disk access times may not
match yours. I've seen faster access times (a Seagate ST4038 with an
interleave of 2:1) and slower (Seagate ST-225 20 Meg Half-height).
No, I never saw any broken clusters by running chkdsk; and
remember my test file was well over half-megabyte in size, 14467
lines! "Shift-G" and "1 Shift-G" went from one end of the file to
the other *INSTANTANEOUSLY*. (How do they _do_ that?)

Like I said: I _like_ the MKS Toolkit. I think you will, too, if you
give it a try.

keith (just a satisfied customer) ericson