Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!sun-spots-request
From: jef@well.sf.ca.us (Jef Poskanzer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: SparcStation Performance
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <3859@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 7 Dec 89 22:29:43 GMT
Sender: root@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 17
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
X-Refs:  Original: v8n199, Replies: v8n206 v8n207 v8n212 v8n214
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 220, message 9 of 19

In the referenced message, jeremy@kheops.cmi.no (Jeremy Cook) wrote:
}Could it be that the [console] device driver is very
}inefficient but that the time used to access the device does not show up
}in a 'ps' ?

Yes, the console driver is extremely inefficient (what do you expect from
FORTH); yes, the CPU time it eats does not show up in a 'ps'.  But the
most amusing part is that the the time it eats up "doesn't exist".  While
the console driver is updating the screen, the system's real time clock is
not being updated, and time "stands still".  The clock does not catch up
later, it stays slow.  This makes benchmarking the console's speed an
interesting proposition...

Anyway, the moral is (a) don't use the console, and (b) if you must use
the console, remember to reset your system's clock every day.

Jef Poskanzer  jef@well.sf.ca.us  {ucbvax, apple, hplabs}!well!jef