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Path: utzoo!mnetor!lsuc!ncrcan!brian
From: brian@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM (Brian Onn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: '287 will speed up Xenix?
Message-ID: <332@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM>
Date: Fri, 16-Oct-87 10:51:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: ncrcan.332
Posted: Fri Oct 16 10:51:07 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Oct-87 20:06:23 EDT
References: <1819@killer.UUCP>
Reply-To: brian@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM (Brian Onn)
Organization: NCR Canada Ltd., Mississauga, Ontario
Lines: 33
Keywords: Xenix '287

In article <1819@killer.UUCP> tony@killer.UUCP (Tony Holden) writes:
>I have just heard a statement that if true, I can't believe.
>
>The statement is:  if you have a math co-processor on board then Xenix itself
>will speed up by 20-30%.
>
>Is this true?  How come I've never heard this before?
>
>Dumbfoundedly yours
>
>Tony Holden
>ihnp4!killer!tony

I doubt it.  The addition of a math coprocessor will only speed up those
programs that take advantage of it.

I have never seen a floating point operation being performed in any unix kernel
I have worked on, and I suspect the same holds true for the Xenix kernel.  Thus
expect no speed-up for the kernel.

Very few utilities use floating point, and only one comes to mind on Xenix,
spline.  Thus expect no speed up from the utilities.

The only advantage would be if you were running an application on Xenix that
did extensive floating point operations, and it actually *uses* the
co-processor. 

-- 

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