From: kac@utrcv1 (Kenneth Dreitlein Jr.)
Subject: Re: PC and Mac OEs (was Re: 1 Thing Windows can do but OS/2 can't.)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: United Technologies Research Center
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 13:45:00 GMT

In article <-!pm+vn@lynx.unm.edu>, jfreter@triton.unm.edu (The Myth) writes...
>In article <29JUL199216292433@utrcv1> kac@utrcv1 (Kenneth Dreitlein Jr.) writes:
>>windows, buttons, etc.  But who cares.  I care about performance.  And although
>>your IBM-compatible might go faster(at times) through DOS, the performance 
>>through Windows is horrible.  I use the Mac predominantly, but I occasionally
>>do need to do work on Windows 3.1(not my own choice).  Just compare the
>>performance of the two.  My SE/30(16MHz 68030), which is apparently equivalent
>>to a 25MHz 386, runs at least twice as fast as the 33MHz 386(w/Windows) I have
>>at work.  And that is assuming that the Windows program doesn't crash, which
>>happens quite frequently.  
> 
> 
>If you're so worried about performance, why are you on a mac?  I have run
>a few simple "benchmarking" tasks on a 386sx/20MHz with 4MB and an 80 MB HD
>and the same tasks on a mac iisi ('030/20) and found that the windows machine
>was significantly faster.  While the tests weren't comprehensive, they do
>contain much of the features that the average user would incorporate and need
>to do.  I ran only one app at once, so there were no delays due to multi-
>tasking (well, actually, I had the Clock program running on the real computer
>as well).
> 
>I created a 52 by 300 cell worksheet with all cells linked to cell A1
>(in Excel).  I then transferred that same spreadsheet to the mac.  I then
>entered the same number into cell a1 on both machines.  I pressed enter
>at the same time.  The windows machine (with 3.1 and excel 3.0) finished 
>in about half the time that it took for the mac.  I then decided that it
>might be due to bad coding on M.S.'s part on the mac, so I tried another
>Mac spreadsheet (Wingz, unknown version # and Claris works' spreadsheet).
>I changed the number to the same value on both, and found that the mac was
>closer to the time required by the pc, but was still slower.  Finally, I
>tried 1-2-3 for DOS and that was still even faster than any of the others.
> 
>I also created a document in Ami Pro 2.0 that was 25 pages long.  I saved
>that as an ascii file, and imported into both WP for Mac (2.something) and
>word for mac (5.something).  I also imported it into Ami Pro.  I then did
>a search and replace of all The's in the document with the word _dog_
>(OK, so this isn't done all the time, but it still tests the speed of
>search and replace).  The pc was faster running Ami Pro than the Mac running
>either word processor.  I then tried out W.P. 5.1 for DOS and found that faster
>still.
> 
>So, in conclusion, even though these weren't the most comprehensive of tests,
>they are proof positive that mac's lack the speed and power of a machine
>that cost less than one-third the mac's price.  The '030/20MHz is definately
>a slower chip than the 386SX/20MHz.
> 

I'm not claiming to be a genius on microprocessor architecture, but I've even
heard die-hard IBM users claim that equivalent Motorola chips(e.g. '030<>386)
run faster than their Intel counterparts.  Then why is the IIsi going slower?
Are you sure there is a math coprocessor in it.  None of the IIsi's come with
a 68882 installed.  The SE/30 does.  And with something like Excel, numerical
operations can be up to 100 times faster with the coprocessor(according to 
a Mac benchmark).

K.C.

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