tucker@ccvaxa.UUCP (11/21/85)
You just can't compare the sizes of all the programs in /bin and /usr/bin on Sun-2 UNIX on a 68k and SYS V on a 286 like that! They are completely different versions of UNIX. One is 4.2 Berkeley like with SUN networking filesystem modifications and the other is AT&T System five. Your argument that this shows that the 286 has more compact code than the 68000 is illogical. Tim Tucker ucbvax!ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!tucker tucker@gswd-vms.ARPA
jabusch@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU (11/23/85)
Yes, IBM does make the CS-9000, which is 68k-based. I hate it! I've used it for classwork, with Xenix. It's incredibly slow. We have people around here who use them (the 9000's) a lot, and I think that most of them would agree. A lot of this is due to the fact that they use the older hard disks, which are slower than those of an AT. Not all the speed difference is due to this, though. I've compiled programs on my PC faster than programs compiled on the 9000, and the 9000 was not loaded down by other terminals or users at the time. My experience with the 9000's left me very disappointed. They were (are still?) very unreliable, although some argued that this was because of the lab conditions. I've seen them go down in other areas, also, and stick to my guns. The AT runs several times faster under Xenix, and is far more preferable in terms of reliability, excluding the problems with the hard disks that were so common at release time. I have never seen an AT running Xenix at clock speeds faster than 6Mhz, and don't know what the clock speed is for the 9000, so perhaps someone else around here with more insight to the relative merits of each machine can lend a hand. On the whole, though, the AT is a nice machine, especially for the user who does little or no programming. I like to program when I have the time, and prefer to stick to higher level languages anyway, so the segmentation does not really bother me that much. I rely on the compiler to solve those problems for me. I have done little machine-language programming, as most of my programs did not need the extra bit of tweeking that the compiler couldn't provide. Of course, there are those of you who do like that sort of thing a lot, and all power to you. John W. Jabusch Department of Computer Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign CSNET: jabusch%uiuc@csnet-relay.ARPA UUCP: {ihnp4,convex,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!jabusch USENET: ...!{pur-ee,ihnp4}!uiucdcs!jabusch ARPA: jabusch@uiuc.arpa
ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu (Ralph Hyre) (11/26/85)
In article <4400129@uiucdcsb> jabusch@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU writes: > > > Yes, IBM does make the CS-9000, which is 68k-based. I hate it! >I've used it for classwork, with Xenix. It's incredibly slow. We have ... > The AT runs several times faster under Xenix, and is far more ... Much of this is probably due to the fact that the CS-9000 has not gone through 2 1/2 generations of products as is the case with the AT, as it would have a 68010 (or 68020) by now. As a 'lab' machine, IBM probably does not consider the CS-9000 to be as important as the PC family. Had the Lisa been more competitively priced (and perhaps had an MacCharlie option in 1983), the 68000 might have 'won'. - Ralph
gm@trsvax (11/29/85)
> And what if Eleanor Roosevelt had been able to fly?
I don't think she would have had a serious effect upon the war, seeing
as how she was the First Lady. The secret service would have never given her
the permission to file a flight plan. She would have been much to slow to
function as a fighter plane, even if she could have carried a gun. Same
argument for her use as a bomber, not enough power to carry a sizeable load.
Be sure and watch next week when we answer the question:
"What if Fransisco Franco was still alive?"