Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc!garcon!pequod.cso.uiuc.edu!dorner
From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Selling through Businessland
Message-ID: <689@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 30 Mar 89 16:07:38 GMT
References: <1554@neoucom.UUCP> <121@dg.dg.com>
Sender: news@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu
Reply-To: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 24

In article <121@dg.dg.com> rec@dg.UUCP (Robert Cousins) writes:

>              ...  The new wave of 88000 based workstations (which
>do an honest 17+ MIPS) ...

Now, I'm no hardware expert, but isn't the whole point of RISC machines
that they have a small instruction set that they can execute quickly?
Does that not mean that MIPS numbers for RISC machines are inherently
inflated?

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying an 88000 isn't faster than a 68030 on
real work; I really don't know.  But the obvious calculation of

	    17MIPS / 5MIPS = 3.4 times faster

is wrong, isn't it?  Or is that 17 MIPS figure normalized to VAX MIPS?

I don't mean to start a discussion more appropriate for other forums; I'd
just like everyone (me included) to know exactly what kind of systems
Robert Cousins is talking about.
-- 
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: dorner@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu  UUCP: {convex,uunet}!uiucuxc!dorner
IfUMust:  (217) 244-1765