🚀 go-pugleaf

	First of all, all of the benchmarking I have seen comparing the '020
to the '386 has been pretty lame.  Everything (so far, I should say.  Optimism
in action...) is either a) biased on purpose (run by Motorola or Intel),
b) biased by accident (i.e., comparing a real machine against a paper
machine, or comparing radically different configurations), or c) pretty
useless (millions of nops per second, mega-linpack-i'm-sorry-but-99%-
of-comp.sys.mac-inverts-less-than-one-matrix-a-year-anyway, megachars-
compared-to-a-null-string-per-second, etc.).  Most benchmarks commit more
than one of the above.
	I suspect most people's interest in benchmarking is not based on
a need to answer the question 'how should I design my next microprocessor'
(In which case bus-cycles-per-light-furlong is probably an interesting
statistic) but instead on the question 'gee, I wonder how fast a '386 box feels?
I wonder just how well a Mac II justifies the cost difference over a
Mac +/-?  I'm going to write a CPU-bound program to do <x>, which machine
should I buy?'  Another words, it's the application speed that matters.
	So I kinda sorta think that an application benchmark would be
pretty interesting.  You know, Word on a Mac II, Word on a Compaq '386.
Excel.  PageMaker (I heard somewhere that the first PageMaker release
running running on a '386 was slower than on a Mac Plus.  Hey, it's just
a rumor, don't believe it til you see it yourself).
	Anyway, I think the jury is pretty far out right now.  We'll start
to get the results when the applications start getting ported, til then,
well, I think the two machines, running with the same speed DRAMs and
compiler technology, run at about the same speed.
	My personal bias is that Motorola machines can be made to run
faster (the 25 MHz '020 beat the 20 MHz '386 to market by about a year)
if you've got the bucks for a serious cache or fast memories, and that
the 030 will tip the scales to Motorola's side, around the end of '88.
Don't hold your breath for the '486 to come out, I hear they're trying
to get it to support Ada in silicon :-) 
	And, yes, I do think comp.sys.mac is an appropriate forum for
benchmarking discussions.  Applications tend to dominate in
this industry, but speed is important too.  Also, the software
markets are beginning to converge, or at least overlap, so that we
are beginning to have a choice (Make Mine Mac).

David Chenevert