X-Envelope-to: SPSSX-L@UGA.BITNET
X-VMS-To: IN%"SPSSX-L@UGA.BITNET"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.spssx-l
Date:         Fri, 10 Apr 1992 14:51:00 EST
Reply-To:     Brian Pickerill <00BKPICKERIL@BSUVAX1.BITNET>
From:         Brian Pickerill <00BKPICKERIL@BSUVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: MAC/SUN/TOSHIBA SPSS PERFORMANCE

On Fri, 10 Apr 1992 08:04:19 -0700 Skip Eastman wrote:

>I've used SPSS on PC, Mac and large Sun lately, and choose the Mac,
>even though it is slower in many cases than the other two.  I do it
>because all of the usual Mac "mousey" things work in spite of the fact
>that SPSS Mac looks just the same as its PC and mainframe versions.
>That also means that I can have lots of windows open and grab parts of
>output files to print, etc.  The Mac version, by the way, was a
>complete rewrite of the program, and was numbered the same as the new
>version on the PC and mainframe.  (It didn't start at version 1.0.)
>All in all, I like the Mac version very much, although the Tables
>command, while providing PostScript(TM) output, doesn't give me any
>flexibility over font choice, nor can I directly export the output
>file to other programs for cleaning up.  Transport into Word(TM) means
>deleting lots of control characters, and location control of columns
>is based on fixed-width font and spaces.

>From a performance standpoint, SPSS Mac on my ci, with 8 megs of RAM,
>a cache card and color turned off runs at about one-third the speed of
>the large Sun 4 I have access to via our network.  But the surprising
>results come on a Toshiba 5200 portable! that I have tested directly
>against the Mac.  The 5200 is a full-power 20mhz 386 (no batteries).
>I ported a Mac SPSS setup and data through file exchange.  It runs
>without modification.  Using the standard software which comes with
>the Toshiba (autoexec and config files, whatever caching is stock) it
>runs the same job as the Mac at over 5 times the speed!  This job is a
>1200 case, 350 variable one, so I know it is not somewhere in the
>round-off. I have tried the same job on other PC platforms with
>results more in the Mac range.  Our experts have been unable to
>determine the source of the anomaly, but it sure annoys the Apple guys
>when they see it.

Your ci costs about a 1/3 of the price of the SUN, too.  Also, I think
you'll find a big difference in performance between the ci and a
quadra.  Especially when the 950 model comes out--probably next month--
and the new device drivers are written for the quadra's SCSII 2.

Are you sure that you are comparing the speed of these machines as they
make a pass of the ACTIVE file, as opposed to an ititial read of a system
file???  SPSS will normally read its' active file in at least half the
time it takes to make the initial pass.  (Compare the time it takes to
say, run a procedure imeadiately after GETting a file to the time it
takes to re-run the same procedure.  (On the first pass, the active
file is being written while the system file is being read.)  This, it
seems to me, could be the most logical explanation for such a discrepancy
between the Toshiba and the other PCs. (And one the most of the "Apple
guys" wouldn't notice.)

***************************************************************************
Brian Pickerill                   *
Ball State University             * phone (317) 285-5209
Offices of Institutional Research * Bitnet 00bkpickeril@BSUVAX1
 and Academic Assessment          * Internet 00bkpickeril@LEO.BSUVC.BSU.EDU
Muncie, IN 47306                  *
***************************************************************************
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU