From: jerry@cs.mcgill.ca (Gerald (Jerry) KUCH)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.games,comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.multimedia,comp.sys.amiga.graphics,comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Considering switching to IBM
Date: 4 Apr 92 17:03:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Apr4.170302.12128
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

In article <1992Apr3.204240.1975@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> nap42487@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Nishith A. Patel) writes:
>
>The really sad thing about this is this guy had a 68040 accelerator!!!! He also
>tested multitasking with a 25 MHz 486 and it was only slightly slower than
>his 68040 accelerated Amiga. The 25 MHz 486 is only about 76 percent  as fast
>as a 68040 at 25 MHz as far as raw  speed goes, in executing instructions.
>(The 25 MHz 486 will still beat the 040 in most identical application tasks
>because of it's superior instruction set. This is another advantage of Intel
>processor based computers over Amigas.) And if he used a faster OS, like the
>new OS/2 2.0, he will see a bigger performance boost in multitasking.

The 486's "superior instruction set".  That's a new one.  And what OS was the
Intel machine running?  Was it Windoze?  If so I'd love to see if you'd be
able to explain to the net possible differences in context switching overhead
between a system that has real pre-emption, and one in which apps have to 
preempt voluntarily.

First you say the 486 is 76% as fast as the 040, and then you say the 486
has better instructions such that it usually beats the 040?  What does this
mean?

>If Workbench was set in 16 colors, the environment would be slower than 
>Windows in 16 colors, and the Workbench has hardly any graphics. (If you
>compare the Workbench to Windows, system 7.0, OS/2, or other truly GRAPHICAL
>user interface, you will see the Workbench hardly qualifies as a GUI.)

If the icons don't look nice to you re-draw them or get new ones...

I suppose by these grounds that the 4-level grayscale of NeXTStep on a mono-
chrome NeXTstation hardly qualifies as a GUI either....

>Also, I challenge Amiga owners to run their fastest serious app (as in their
>fastest CAD program, spreadsheet, or other processor intensive app for high
>end work) and compare it to the speed of the fastest app for that purpose
>available for the IBM under OS/2 2.0 (or a Windows app under Windows 3.1)

Ok, so let's run Bob's Software Inc.'s "DildoCAD" on the Amiga, and then we
should compare it to SuperDuperInternationalMegaBusterKillerCorp's 
"BlazingDeathFastCAD" on the 486.  Sounds like a reasonable way to compare
the raw performance of the systems they're running under...

>For CAD, go with the standard, AutoCAD, but I do not know if it is the fastest.
>For a spreadsheet, go with Lotus 1-2-3 3.1 or 2.3. Under windows 3.1, go with
>Excel. These might not be the fastest, but they will do. You will see that
>OS/2 2.0 and Windows 3.1 are very fast.

Actually I figure that most likely we'll just see a lot of mindless bullshit
posted about the 'results'.  This is very scientific and analytical and soundly
logical.  Not.

And Windows still doesn't really have preemptive multitasking.  It's coming,
but it's not here yet.  Why don't we run Windows against BSD UNIX?  I'm sure
we could find cases where Windows would outperform it, but they still would
not convince anybody sane that it's somehow a "better OS".
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy