Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!uunet!mstan!amull
From: amull@Morgan.COM (Andrew P. Mullhaupt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Re: Information wanted on m88000 Risc workstations
Summary: Hot - Yeah! but are they 'Berkeley' enough?
Keywords: 80386 m88000 Everex Opus UNIX DOS
Message-ID: <648@s5.Morgan.COM>
Date: 7 Jan 90 06:25:54 GMT
References: <641@s5.Morgan.COM> <25A64468.11498@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Organization: Morgan Stanley & Co. NY, NY
Lines: 76

In article <25A64468.11498@paris.ics.uci.edu>, rfg@ics.uci.edu (Ron Guilmette) writes:
> Coincidently, there is a write up about such systems in the January 1990
> issue of "MIPS" magazine (soon to be "Personal Workstation" magazine?).

No co-incidence. I got interested in these boxes entirely due to that
article, (and the Byte magazine 'first look' at the portable Opus.)

Now the performance of these toys is really wild. The only real
difficulties I have are:

1. We have extensive need for Berkeley extensions in our software.
We also use Sun's memory mapped files a whole lot. The System V
alternative (shared memory) is OK, but we're pretty leery of any
System V that isn't practically Release 4. Can I get close enough to
Sun OS with an Aviion (Everex 8825, Opus 8120, etc.) If I can
I may very well get one.

2. That ratio of Megaflops to MIPS sucks. Let me rephrase this. Given
that the 88000 is the only RISC chip with onboard floating support,
you've got to wonder why since it ends up being (relatively) so
slow. Can you get an FPA for it? On the systems with the combined
88000/80386 CPUs can you hang a quick Cyrix of the 80386, or a Weitek
3167? or can you put a 4167 on the 88000? Does Motorola have some
kind of remedy for those of us who like the looks of those soon to
be announced 486/860 systems which will scream for floating point?

Let me make one sobering point here for those who yet fail to
apprehend the need for double precision arithmetic outside of pure
engineering and scientific work: It turns out that you cannot 
make the obvious split adjustments to stock prices in a portfolio
if your position in a stock can be over a hundred thousand dollars
without getting some unfortunate round off effects which could, if
you didn't catch them first, lead you to violate exchange rules or
misfile taxes. The cost of such a mistake (which would be measured
in your job) is large compared to whatever benefit that factor of
two turns out to be in machines. 

> The bottom line?  Three of the five "Best Performers" in the category
> called "UNIX Workstations" are based on the 88000 (including the top
> two slots).  In the "Best Price/Performance" list, the top 4 entries
> are all based on the 88000.
> 
> Two items worthy of note from the "Best Price/Performance" list:
> 
> 	The least expensive item on the list is the Data General
> 	AViiON workstation (even less expensive than the 386 add-ins).
> 
> 	The DG AViiON has far and away the best single-precision
> 	Whetstone performance, and it has much better double-precision
> 	performance than any of the 386 add-ins.  This fact could be
> 	critical if you plan on doing any graphics or other numerically
> 	intensive computation.
> 
> Anybody who is now considering buying a "hot-box" would be well advised
> to have a look at this article before making a final choice.
> 
> // rfg


Yeah, well that DecStation 3100 kind of stomps these 88000 boxes for
double precision. And the application benchmarks in that issue show
just how nasty the threat is from the 486 (e.g. the Cheetah Gold is
in the same class as these other machines, and Weitek IS working on
a floating point coprocessor for the 486. Also the Cheetah costs
about 10,000 for the tested configuration.) It's not really clear
how the price performance benchmark is arrived at, and the Dhrystone
just doesn't represent what I need a box for. Right now I'm of a
mind to get the 88000 if I can get good UNIX and some kind of 
floating point help. Otherwise, it's back to square one. Oh well.

Please keep this subject alive - I think the 88000 is finally
emerging beyond its established user base - and I think discussion
could only help its chances.

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt