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From: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Speeding up Sun 4 X?
Keywords: Megabytes, memory hog
Message-ID: <33480@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 5 Jan 90 04:37:02 GMT
References: <33410@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <9001021710.AA11011@dart.cs.byu.edu> <50334@bbn.COM> <1990Jan4.203816.1886@eng.umd.edu>
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Reply-To: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
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In article <1990Jan4.203816.1886@eng.umd.edu> stripes@eng.umd.edu (Joshua Osborne) writes:
_>In article <50334@bbn.COM> pplacewa@antares.bbn.com (Paul W Placeway) writes:
_>>mike@DART.CS.BYU.EDU (Mike Burbidge) writes:
_>>< At this point you
_>>< will have a server that uses under 2.5 meg of runtime memory.
_>>
_>>Ga!  (I usually won't use such an example, but in this case I have to
_>>make an exception:) At this point, the server is about 10 TIMES the
_>>size of the bitmap and windowing code in a Mac.  Now I could under-
_>>stand a doubling in size (after all, extra space is needed to run
_>>the server side of the network interface), but 10?!?!?
_>The Sun4 is SPARC baised, SPARC is a RISC.  Mac is 68000 baised, 68000
_>is a CISC.  I do beleve CISC code is *more* compact then RISC code.
_>The Mac's windowing system was written in assembler (designed to be
_>called by Pascal), X is written in C.  Assembler is offen more compact
_>then C, esp if your assembler programer knows he has a 64K ROM and 128K
_>RAM while the C programer knows he has 4+Meg real mam, and tons of VM.
_>Who is to say that the Mac didn't scrifice speed for space?  Mabie Sun
_>choose speed over space?  And mabie X provides more then the Mac's
_>windowing system?  Which had *NO* color to begin with (I don't know if
_>you are talking about a Mac OS written for color or not).  [this isn't
_>a flame of the Mac OS, I liked it alot last I used it]

Sigh, I didn't mention it when I started this thread, but the reason I
wanted help speeding up an 8Meg Sun 4/260's X implementation is because 
I was sick of waiting 4 times as long for simple services as I was used
to.

I am used to a 2Meg Mac IIcx (less than $3k. 16Mhz 68030.) Typical window
system activity, general graphics, and compile/link a simple
program that uses the window system, are each 4 to 10 times faster on the
cheap mac than they are on the expensive sun, even though the Sun has a
lot more RAM, a lot more MIPS, a graphics coprocessor, a lot more disk,
a lot more buttons on the mouse, & a lot more buttons on the keyboard.

The consensus of the discussion is that I should buy another 8Meg of RAM
for the Sun.  RAM for a Mac is less than $80.00/Meg. Anybody know where to
get cheap Sun RAM?

By the way, where is the mapping of all those buttons on the keyboard,
under X, documented?

_> The mac is a detour in the inevitable march of mediocre computers.
_> drs@bnlux0.bnl.gov (David R. Stampf)
--- David Phillip Oster          -master of the ad hoc odd hack. 
Arpa: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu 
Uucp: {uwvax,decvax}!ucbvax!oster%dewey.soe.berkeley.edu