🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1989Nov22.175128.24910@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>In article <1128@m3.mfci.UUCP>, rodman@mfci.UUCP (Paul Rodman) writes:
>>...Let's ignore the fact that the Killer Micros usually don't have a
>> decent memory system or I/O system...
>
>No, let's ignore it because it's not a fact but an incredibly biased
>(and not particularly useful) opinion.

What?!  Uhm, I hate to tell you this, but the reason mini's provide much
better throughput than micros was because of the I/O subsystem.  A '286 is
faster than a VAX (785, let's say), but, go multi-user, and there is no
comparison:  the VAX will get *much* better throughput (meaning:  it may
take three times as long to do your sieve of Erasthoneses, but swapping
processes in and out, and doing any disk I/O, is going to go more than three
times faster).  This is because the '286 (a killer-micro, compared to a VAX
8-)) doesn't have the memory or I/O subsystems that the VAX does.  Now,
compare just about *any* system on the market today with, say, a CDC Cyber
running NOS (or, deity forgive me, even NOS/VE).  (Bet you were all waiting
for me to mention those, weren't you? 8-).)  As has been pointed out before,
lots of people don't *need* 250 MFLOPS / MIPS on their desktop; they just
need to shuffle data back and forth (that's why there's a TPS [Transactions
Per Second] measurement; any commentary on that, John?  Michael?).  Without
a decent I/O subsystem, you won't be able to do this.  And the memory in
most "killer micros" is defficient because I can't do *real* DMA (it tends
to steal cycles from the CPU).  (N.B.:  some K.M.'s *do* have *real* DMA.
I'm waiting for them to come out with *real* I/O subsystems [using, say, a
68000 as a PP].  Then they will scream, even compared to a Cyber.)

>>...[Not to mention that their
>> compilers and O/S are often not very robust...:-)]
>Yeah, let's not mention that, since it isn't true.

Some of the compilers available today are pretty amazing, especially
compared to what was available just a decade ago.  The OS's running on most
K.M.'s, however, tend to be unix varients (or, deity help us all, DOS).
This is not a terribly robust OS, nor a terribly quick one (asynchronous I/O
would be really nice; there are some other things that could be useful).

So, yeah, it is true.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "Time has little to do with infinity and jelly donuts."
seanf@sco.COM    |    -- Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck), _Magnum, P.I._
(408) 458-1422   | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.