S707503@UWEC.BITNET (MARK RINECK) (05/06/90)
In response to comments by Lyle @ netcom.UUCP: [But a IIgs with it's stock 2.8 mhz, is faster than most TURBO XT's, and the same as many Stock ATs. It is also faster than a Mac Plus, and in ways, comparable to a Mac SE.] What? Are you nuts? As far as that goes, a Mac SE running Microsoft Word 4.0 (which ain't no little program) is a lot, lot faster than Appleworks GS! Of course MIPS is a better test for speed, but still, there is NO way a 2.8 MHZ machine is going to be faster than an 8 Mhz consistently. (there are always special exceptions...etc.) [The sound on the IIgs is among the BEST in the PC industry, capable of playing 15 sounds simultaneously with Orchestraic quality. It is better than most stock Macs, and better than IBM's even with AdLib sound cards on them. ] Remember, both the GS and Mac SE and Plus have a mono earphone plug for sound output (stock). Even the Bose speakers are plagued by line noise! Try playing "Revenge of Defender" on an Amiga 500 with (built-in) L and R RCA plugs hooked up to a quality stereo system. It is more than real! [It could also be blamed partially on software pirates, who are continuously giving out free copies of commercial software.] That happens to every computer system, not just the GS. [Macs and IBMs are virtually dominating the industry. A small computer like the IIgs has no room to fit in. ] Not when there are those nice Macs and IBMs for number-crunching lovers and the Amiga 500 for the kiddies (and adults, too :) ) to play games on. Where does the GS fit in? [It doesn't help one bit that the IIgs has it's own completely different operating system, isolating it from the rest of the Apple IIs. ] The GS has everything intact that the //e does/did. A new GUI interface for the GS was perfect, and one of it's bright spots. No one wants a new version of DOS 3.3, do they? Mark Rineck University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire S707503@UWEC.BITNET
lyle@netcom.UUCP (Lyle Fong) (05/06/90)
The IIgs has better sound than the Mac SE, it is mono, but the quality is better by far. There are stereo cards (inexpensive) that allow it to play
stereo sound, which is widely supported.
The pirates on IBMs and Macs do not do as much damage because the IIgs has
a much smaller market, and there are less IIgs users, so teh companies
rely on a lot of IIgs users buying the software, while in IBMs or Macs,
there are enough people who buy the software that the other 75% that pirate
would not effect them that much.
The IIgsUs GUI is not on the old Apple IIs, and IIgs software do not work
on the old IIs.. which isolates it from the others. Old Apple II software
have crappy graphics and crappy sound.. an insult to the IIgs itself.
I did not say that the stock IIgs was faster than a Mac SE.. if you would
read with your eyes, you would see that I mentioned a IIgs with TRANSWARP
.. and the reason that the SE seems so much faster anyways, is because
it is black and white! While the IIGs is color.. a lot more information
to deal with.
And.. Appleworks GS is a BIGGER program than#zO_o{ Word.... in
itUs ways..
Obviously, the remarks you make do not give the IIgs any justification,
but only your stereotypical opinions to how you think the Macs are
better. If you would use the IIgs for several days, you will also
realise that the IIgs is a great computer, and has a lot of potential
than you think.
Lyle @ netcomchen@glycine.cs.unc.edu (Super Dave) (05/06/90)
In article <900505.18161082.042392@UWEC.CP6> S707503@UWEC.BITNET (MARK RINECK) writes: >In response to comments by Lyle @ netcom.UUCP: > >[But a IIgs with it's stock 2.8 mhz, is faster than >most TURBO XT's, and the same as many Stock ATs. It is also faster than a Mac >Plus, and in ways, comparable to a Mac SE.] >What? Are you nuts? As far as that goes, a Mac SE running Microsoft Word >4.0 (which ain't no little program) is a lot, lot faster than Appleworks >GS! Of course MIPS is a better test for speed, but still, there is NO >way a 2.8 MHZ machine is going to be faster than an 8 Mhz consistently. >(there are always special exceptions...etc.) I don't want to be Mr. Nit-Pick, but a 2.8 Mhz machine could easily beat the pants off a 8 Mhz machine. Compare Sun's SPARC vs. Intel's 80386. Sun 4's typically run at 16 to 25 Mhz, while you can get 80386's going 33-50 Mhz. But, there's no way a 386 machine is gonna come close to the SPARC machine. The reason is that the Sun averages less than 2 cycles per instruction, while the 386, being the CISC beast that it is averages, a lot more. I dunno off the top of my head but I would guess 5 or more cycles per instruction. And then there are the instructions like multiply that can take 20-30 cycles (again a guess). So the key is number of instructions per second, not number of cycles per second. Heck, while I'm being Mr. RISC, let me just say that people saying how CISC is catching up with RISC are full of it. The Intel 80486 and the Motorola 68040 are as fast as the current SPARC chip, but it takes the CISC chips > 1 million transistors to do it. The SPARC is about 100,000 transistors. They should be comparing these CISC chips to the Intel i860 which is quoted as being 40 MIPS using about the same number of transistors. Dave "Don't Get Me Started" Chen _________________________David_T._Chen_(chen@cs.unc.edu)_______________________ Thunderstick?... You actually said 'Thunderstick'?... That, my friend, is a Winchester 30.06. -- The Far Side, by Gary Larson
cyliao@eng.umd.edu (Chun-Yao Liao) (05/06/90)
In article <900505.18161082.042392@UWEC.CP6> S707503@UWEC.BITNET (MARK RINECK) writes: >[The sound on the IIgs is among the BEST in the PC industry, capable of playing >15 sounds simultaneously with Orchestraic quality. It is better than most >stock Macs, and better than IBM's even with AdLib sound cards on them. >] > >Remember, both the GS and Mac SE and Plus have a mono earphone plug for >sound output (stock). Even the Bose speakers are plagued by line noise! >Try playing "Revenge of Defender" on an Amiga 500 with (built-in) L and R >RCA plugs hooked up to a quality stereo system. It is more than real! here, one thing to say... the GS DOES stereo, shame on Apple that did not build the stereo line to the headphone jack. Don't believe me? After reading the GS hardware ref, my friend built his own stereo card by using 3 transistors and one audio amplifier. The stereo hard ware is IN the GS, but all you need are 3 transistors to correctly send the sound to different channel, that's it! -- cyliao@wam.umd.edu o NeXT : I put main frame power on two chips. @epsl.umd.edu o people: We put main flame power on two guys. @bagend.eng.umd.edu o :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx.xxx (reserved) o RC + Apple // + Classic Music + NeXT = cyliao
lhaider@pro-sol.cts.com (Lawrence Haider) (05/07/90)
In-Reply-To: message from cyliao@eng.umd.edu > here, one thing to say... the GS DOES stereo, shame on Apple that did > not build the stereo line to the headphone jack. Don't believe me? > After reading the GS hardware ref, my friend built his own stereo > card by using 3 transistors and one audio amplifier. The stereo hard > ware is IN the GS, but all you need are 3 transistors to correctly > send the sound to different channel, that's it! >-- >cyliao@wam.umd.edu o NeXT : I put main frame power on two chips. Ok, let's get this gadget into production! I'd gladly pay $10-$20 for such a setup to get stereo sound from my headphone jack, or even a separate jack! lhaider@pro-sol.cts.com
madd@world.std.com (jim frost) (05/08/90)
S707503@UWEC.BITNET (MARK RINECK) writes: >Of course MIPS is a better test for speed, but still, there is NO >way a 2.8 MHZ machine is going to be faster than an 8 Mhz consistently. >(there are always special exceptions...etc.) Most CISC chips (such as the 8088) take two to six cycles per instruction. Most RISC chips take one to two and newer RISC chips are superscalar -- better than one instruction per cycle. A superscalar RISC chip, running at .8 cycles/instruction average, needs only to run at less a third of the clock speed of a CISC chip to achieve the same MIPS rating. "Ah," you say, "but the CISC is getting more done per instruction." True. Common instructions, such as "add", can take three or four instructions in a RISC architecture -- load registers, add registers, save registers. You see your advantage dwindling. But then you do optimization. In a RISC architecture the software has a lot better control of how data flows in and out of the CPU. It's pretty easy to do dataflow analysis to determine which things to keep in registers and which not, thus cutting out a lot of those loads and stores and boosting performance -- in a CISC architecture all that streamlining is hardcoded into the CPU and if it doesn't quite match what you want to do, it's too bad. What you tend to see is RISC applications performing at about the same speed as CISC applications but at only about 70% of the clock speed (in other words, they run quite a bit faster at the same clock speed). A lot of this advantage is getting eliminated by CISC manufacturers making use of RISC techniques inside of their processors, boosting performance. And the RISC designers are going off and using parallelism to push more instructions through in the same time -- sometimes four or more instructions in a single cycle. What does this have to do with the topic at hand? It *is* possible that a processor running at less than half the clock speed of another can outperform the other, even comparing CISC to CISC performance. For a real-life comparison, check out the MC68030 vs the 040. Although they implement the same instruction set the 040 runs remarkably faster even at the same clock speed. jim frost saber software jimf@saber.com
cyliao@eng.umd.edu (Chun-Yao Liao) (05/09/90)
In article <2561@crash.cts.com> lhaider@pro-sol.cts.com (Lawrence Haider) writes: >In-Reply-To: message from cyliao@eng.umd.edu >> here, one thing to say... the GS DOES stereo, shame on Apple that did >> not build the stereo line to the headphone jack. Don't believe me? >> After reading the GS hardware ref, my friend built his own stereo >> card by using 3 transistors and one audio amplifier. The stereo hard >> ware is IN the GS, but all you need are 3 transistors to correctly >> send the sound to different channel, that's it! > >Ok, let's get this gadget into production! I'd gladly pay $10-$20 for such a >setup to get stereo sound from my headphone jack, or even a separate jack! Quite a lot people sent me mail asking for a schematic diagram of the circuit.. Now, here, not a too good news, but I am trying. First of all, my friend lives in Argentina... the country where I came from... The ARG mail is nothing like US mail. Last time it took over 2 months to get here, well, sometimes it took just about 1 month. I send him letter over a month ago before I posted the above message, so hopefully I will get his mail withing few weeks. I will post the circuit ASAP. BTW, since we are not very into audio circuit, the amplifier part might not be that good.. but at least theoretically the channal is separeted, and we tested it... worked! -- cyliao@wam.umd.edu o NeXT : I put main frame power on two chips. @epsl.umd.edu o people: We put main flame power on two guys. @bagend.eng.umd.edu o :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx.xxx (reserved) o RC + Apple // + Classic Music + NeXT = cyliao
throoph@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Henry Throop) (05/10/90)
In article <1990May8.184135.15142@eng.umd.edu> cyliao@eng.umd.edu (Chun-Yao Liao) writes: >Quite a lot people sent me mail asking for a schematic diagram of the circuit.. >Now, here, not a too good news, but I am trying. Both the _IIgs Hardware Reference Manual_ and Gary Bond's _Beneath the IIgs_ (?) have schematics for the stereo output decoder. I'll try to type it up into ASCII format somehow if there's interest. Henry >cyliao@wam.umd.edu o NeXT : I put main frame power on two chips. --- Henry Throop Internet: throoph@jacobs.cs.orst.edu