Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!hplabs!hpfcdc!hpldola!hp-lsd!prisma!mo
From: mo@prisma
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Binaries and Max Speed
Message-ID: <2700005@prisma>
Date: 3 Jan 89 23:19:00 GMT
References: <5847@polya>
Lines: 15


Well, it turns out that if your machine has a large base of
available applications, like the SPARC, for instance, you discover
that many of those people don't really want to be bothered to
do ANOTHER stock-keeping unit just for YOUR machine if it will
run already, even if crippled to some degree.  As for 3%, on a
100-150 mips machine, that 3% is as fast as what was, until
recently considered a reasonably quick (if not fast) machine.
I'm not claiming it's a gigantic win, but it can be a non-trivial one
for some applications.  Just remember that not everyone's problem
will currently run on a workstation-class machine.

Waste not, want not.

	-Mike