LispMachine File Reading Time.

[Keith Price <price%iris.usc.edu@USC.EDU>]

With all the talk of file reading times, here are the results of an internal
benchmark for Lisp reading character data and storing in a structure.
Further testing of the Symbolics version reveals that 90%+ of the time goes
to the (read).  The comparison is with programs written in Lisp (i.e. the
same program, no tuning for the system, no changes for each system).  The
comparison is various versions of Suns (3s and 4s) in different
configurations, Symbolics 3645 and XL400, TI Explorer II, and Lisp on a VAX
8600.  
	After several conversations with Symbolics people both here in LA and
in MA, I am expecting great improvements in this program with Genera 8.0 (I
was "promised" such operations were addressed), so these times reflect old
data.   All the times are for local file accesses.   I should also state that
the general benchmark results were strongly in favor of the Symbolics, even
compared to the Sun 4.
Input function runtimes.  Primarily Read the file, and put into the data
structure.  The times depend on the disk, GC, and conversion times.
	 Sun3/160     Sun3/260	  Sun IV(S) SUN IV(U) Symbolics    TI-II  8600  
	Real/Run     Real/Run	  Real/Run  Real/Run  Real(Paging)
Small	20.8/20.4    17.0 /16.1	  9.58/9.10  8.2/8.0  17.1(1.1)    6.85   3.78
Small	31.7/29.0    14.1 /13.4	 10.01/9.61 12.0/11.9 16.4(0.3)    6.93   3.74
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Large	539.7/179.7  134.6/131.8 78.2/75.0  47.8/47.4 155.8(20.7) 57.89
Large	350.6/117.5   85.6/ 77.8 39.1/37.6  35.9/35.6  75.7(10.5) 26.48
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(Times are in seconds, XL400 didnot fit on the list, but was not that much
different from 3645 for this case.  All system overhead is included on
Symbolics and not included for the Unix boxes.  You want real speed get a VAX
8600, not a Sun4.)
	Keith Price
	price@usc.edu