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From: johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: index of Model 30
Message-ID: <774@ima.ISC.COM>
Date: Tue, 8-Dec-87 13:46:02 EST
Article-I.D.: ima.774
Posted: Tue Dec  8 13:46:02 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Dec-87 06:34:54 EST
References: <36300005@iuvax>
Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine)
Organization: Not enough to make any difference
Lines: 16
Summary: Norton SI doesn't mean much

In article <36300005@iuvax> bose@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu writes:
>The Norton SI index for the PS/2 Model 30 is 1.9.  My PC XT has a SI index
>of 1.8 with a V20 chip.  However the Model 30 seems to run faster. 
>Can anyone tell me what it is that I am observing?

You're observing the oft noted fact that Norton's SI numbers don't mean much.
In particular, the value that SI reports is heavily affected by the speed at
which a chip can do multiplication instructions, and the V20 multiplies much
faster than an 8088 or 8086.  But the PS/2 has an 8086 with a 16 bit memory,
while the XT has only an 8-bit memory, so that the XT has to make roughly
twice as many memory cycles as the PS/2 to do the same work.  That's why the
PS/2 is faster.
-- 
John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something
The Iran-Contra affair:  None of this would have happened if Ronald Reagan
were still alive.