benchmarks

[dmitchell@BACKUS.trc.amoco.com (Donald H. Mitchell)]

    Date: Wed, 28 Feb 90 16:31 EST
    From: barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)

	Date: Wed, 28 Feb 90 13:37 EST
	From: Jeffrey Mark Siskind <Qobi@ZERMATT.LCS.MIT.EDU>

	Besides, few people
	use timesharing systems anymore today. Most people use single user
        machines

    We're starting to buy X terminals now, and we also usually have many
    users on our large Vaxes.

Most people in most companies that I know still use IBM mainframes with
90+ users simultaneous.  Let's not forget this inertial mass even if most of
us are lucky enough to avoid it.  Of course, you wouldn't do a lisp benchmark
on one of those :-)

    And even when single-user workstations are being used as such,
    occasionally they are timeshared.  For instance, administrators
    sometimes need to login to workstations to debug problems or edit
    configuration files.  

Or do backups.  Boy do backups kill the old CPU!  Of course, if you have no
local disk, then you run into the periodic 'Server not responding still
trying' problems that put the most powerful systems into a long wait.