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From: njs@scifi.UUCP (Nicholas J. Simicich)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Subject: Re: Why the original RT seemed/was slow (was ...)
Message-ID: <447@scifi.UUCP>
Date: 2 Dec 88 17:08:03 GMT
References: <5046@polya.Stanford.EDU> <1287@auschs.UUCP> <1309@auschs.UUCP> <3736@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: njs@scifi.UUCP (Nicholas J. Simicich)
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Organization: Nick Simicich, Peekskill, NY
Lines: 117

In article <3736@pt.cs.cmu.edu> butcher@g.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Lawrence Butcher) writes:
>Mr. Sauer's benchmark people should be aware that the current version of the
>Dhrystone benchmark is version 2.0.  Version 1.1 numbers are not timely.
>
>We have a bunch of RT's.  We use the Metaware High C compiler version 1.4R,
>fall back to pcc when mc generates incorrect code, and run MACH.  The
>Dhrystone numbers Mr. Sauer quotes are so far from the ones that I measure
>here that I wonder if we are measuring different things.  If any reader can
>get their RT to run the benchmark significantly faster than I can, please
>send me mail.  We would love to know what to do to get a C compiler that
>doubles the speed of our programs.
>
 (.....)
>
>The 025, running the software available to me, is about as fast as a SUN 3/50
>while running the Dhrystone program.  However my experience is that an 025
>machine with 4 megs of RAM, a disk, and MACH, is totally useless.  It cannot
>run X10, an xterm, and a single outgoing telnet at the same time.  Yes, I am
>saying that it is not as useful as a terminal.  A diskless Sun 3/50 running
>SUN OS 3.5, suntools, emacs, and pcc is comfortable.  The 125 is about as
>fast as a SUN 3/60, again running the software we have here.  High end 80386
>and middle-end 68030 systems should be about twice as fast as the 3/60.

At IBM T.J. Watson Research, we have a number of RT's running Mach.  A
simple C program running CPU bound with a working set of around 300k
running niced makes it impossible to do any other work on the machine.
This does not happen on either the AOS or AIX machines we have.  The
operating system seems to be the sole difference I can come up with.
I believe that the Mach operating system runs well on a number of
other machines and suspect that it is simply a matter of tuning.

I typically run X 10, GNUemacs, outgoing telnets under Xterm, and so
forth.  I also have other people logging in to my system through
telnet, am the server for some DS style remote mounts, and so forth.
Admittedly, I have more memory and an APC.  But I first brought up AIX
on a 3 meg 025, and it was servicable, just a tad slow.

 (.....)

>I am disappointed that there is no version of GCC for the RT.  IBM could
>allocate one person to do a port and give away the results, but it seems
>that they would rather have a company sell a compiler without source.

As far as I knew, someone in Project Athena has had a working code
generator for GCC since last year, but that there were (at the time)
technical reasons why the code generated was incorrect, even though it
generated the correct results.  Something about the granularity on the
intermediate code pass.  I have no idea what the current status is.

 (.....)

>I am disappointed with the IBM 2-button mouse.  It takes tremendous force
>to push the buttons.  We had an informal contest and only one person here
>could hold both buttons down while lifting the mouse off the table.  (For
>people who have not had the pleasure of using the IBM mouse, you hold both
>buttons down at once to emulate holding the middle button down on a real
>mouse).

I believe that there is a great deal of similiarity between the IBM RT
mouse and the older Microsoft mice.  The mechanisms seem to be
similar, as does the button pushing force.  I can hold the buttons
down while using the mouse and lifting it off of the table surface,
and frequently do, since I allocate the cover of a Usenix 4.2 manual
as my mouse surface.  Then again, I have large hands.  People can pick
up a Microsoft mouse and judge for themselves.

Personally, I think that one button is the right number of buttons on
the mouse.  But this doesn't fit the X model.

>I absolutely cannot believe that the keyboard clicks when you hit the shift
>or control key.  I wish that the caps lock key and the control key were the
>same size so we could switch the key caps.  Thank you someone for that
>layout.  Everyone here rebinds CTRL to the right place.  And the ESC key??

Neither can I, as mine doesn't click when I push ctrl or shift.  But I
run AIX.  The clicking is under software control, not hardware
control, so I suspect that this is a problem with MACH or the AOS
porting base again.  I won't comment on key placement.

>I am disappointed that the RT expansion bus is an AT bus.  The AT form factor
>limits the size of peripheral cards, and limits the power they have available.
>Ever heard of an SMD controller for the AT??  16 line serial line card??

I use the Anvil Systems Stallion 16 line card.  It has a 186 on it,
and all of the cooking and stuff is offloaded to the card.
Communication to the card is at the ioctl()/read()/write() level.
Requires a special I/O driver, of course, which is available from
Anvil for AIX.  This is not a product endorsement.  At the Unix Expo,
I saw a lot of 16 line serial cards that ran on the AT bus, as well as
some that fit in the smaller form factor of the MCA bus card. Of
course, they required special connectors.  We sell a SCSI adapter, but
not an SMD adapter, as far as I know, although I understand that you
can get conversion cards.

>These problems will be worse with smaller MCA cards.  We will throw away the
>RT boxes when they are obsolete.  We will NOT throw away the SUN 3/160 boxes
>when the 3/160 is no longer interesting.

Throw one my way?  I'll be glad to drive over and pick it up.  :-)

>Many of the things that I dislike about the RT could be fixed in the future.
>Today we give APC's to people who cannot afford SUNs.  We give old RT's to
>people to punish them :-)
>
>			Lawrence Butcher @g.gp.cs.cmu.edu
>-- 

I believe that you are correct in your assessment: the problems are
fixable.  Some are already fixed, in that I think that the 19 inch
Megapel is enough real-estate to edit on, and that other problems you
mentioned are being fixed, through our efforts and through the efforts
of third parties.  I also believe that at least some of these problems
you mention are software related, perhaps even Mach specific, and that
the RT can't be blamed for them.  Since this has gotten away from
comp.arch, I've directed followups to comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt.
-- 
Nick Simicich --- uunet!bywater!scifi!njs --- njs@ibm.com (Internet)