MacIvory, 3620, and MicroExplorer performance

[Spock <Spock@samson.cadr.dialnet.symbolics.com>]

    Date: Wed, 7 Sep 88 06:02:13 PDT
    From: gyro@kestrel.arpa (Scott B. Layson)

       Date: Fri, 2 Sep 88 08:47 PDT
       From: Mr.Spock@SAMSON.CADR.DIALNET.SYMBOLICS.COM (Mr. Spock)

	   Date: Fri, 2 Sep 88 08:47 EDT
	   From: Hornig@ALDERAAN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM (Charles Hornig)

	       Date: Fri, 2 Sep 88 02:20:48 EDT
	       From: chseow@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Choong Huei Seow)

	       According to Symbolics [this was when I was at AAAI], this MacIvory has
	       a performance of a 3620 machine. Is the slowdown due to the Memory board
	       residing on a Nubus slot ?

	   The slowdown is due to the disks available for the Mac II being much
	   slower than the disks Symbolics now sells on its 36xx line.  We expect
	   this problem to resolve itself as the disk manufacturers realize that
	   there is a market for fast disks.

    Can you give us a rough idea of the CPU speed relative to, say, a 3670?

       Well, that shoots the whole MacIvory down for me (rats!!).  We have a
       3620 and it's slower than molasses.

    Bizarre.  I have a 3620 I use all the time and it seems just about as
    fast as a 3670.  Well, the 190Mb ST506 disks are a tad slower than an
    Eagle, but not "molasses" by any means, and the CPU feels identical
    (said to be 10% faster?  did I get that right?).  Are you sure your
    '20 isn't just short on memory?  These days it's hard to get by with
    less than 2Mw.  If that's not the problem, maybe something subtle is
    wrong with it.

    ------  Anyhow

Well, I normally work on a 3600 with 2Mw of memory and an IFU board.
Our 20 has 1.5Mw (I think, could be just 1) and 2 190Mb disks.  I have a
real hard time bringing myself to sit in front of the thing because it's
so slow.  Oh well, looks like it's time for an upgrade.

    I hear from TI that the MicroExplorer CPU speed is roughly half that
    of the Explorer II, which I gather puts it in the same ballpark as the
    rest of these machines: 36x0, Ivory, etc.  So the only machine being
    shipped that has a substantial speed edge on the rest of the pack is
    the Explorer II itself, which is still pretty expensive.  But it's a
    perfectly good machine if you don't mind debugging the system software
    to use it...

    -- Scott