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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!cssun.mathcs.emory.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!netnews.nwnet.net!nwnet.net!not-for-mail From: aad@nwnet.net (Anthony D'Atri) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.aix Subject: Re: ISP hardware/software choices (performance comparison) Date: 16 Jan 1996 13:10:05 -0800 Organization: NorthWestNet, Bellevue, Washington, USA, Earth Lines: 27 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <4dh47d$4ve@cypress.nwnet.net> References: <4cmopu$d35@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <DL29Az.Ax2@ftel.co.uk> <DL3Bv8.22H@ritz.mordor.com> <4de43f$nbk@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> Reply-To: aad@nwnet.net NNTP-Posting-Host: cypress.nwnet.net Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1996 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:2147 comp.unix.solaris:57435 comp.unix.aix:68854 >>By 2.5 Sun seems to have made Solaris 2 nearly as useable as SunOS 4.x was 5 >>years ago. As long as you've got an SS-20 with 128MB of memory to run it on, >>it plods along OK >It runs nicely on my SparcStation 2 with 32 Mb, as well. What are >you doing to make an SS 20 plod? I often wonder if our perceptions about the responsiveness of workstations has changed radically in the last handful of years. Diskless Sun 2/50's were perceived as perfectly useable in their day, but now many people complain about the speed of something like a 4/65, which is many times faster. I think that part of the perception is that back in the days of the 2/50, we had much lower expectations on how our machines would respond. 9600 bps terminals were fast, and most of our work was purely textual. Now, when even low-end desktop machines are much, much faster, we *expect* instant response, and perhaps now view the same responsiveness that used to be great as sluggish. I also think that the tools that we use have influenced our perceptions. In the days of the 2/50, people pretty much ran suntools, with relatively spare graphics and lots of kernel support. Now we run mostly user-mode X tools, with memory and cycle-intensive toolkits like Motif used to draw 3D pseudo-art- deco borders around everything. Sure, our machines have become much faster, but we're making heavier demands on them. 8-bit color is now very common, where most desktops used to be 1-bit mono.