Pitting a Mac Plus Against an AMD Dual Core

In the Age of Computer Bloat someone has decided to do a performance comparison between a 1986 Mac Plus and a 2007 AMD Dual core, each running appropriate software. Computer Bloat does not fare so well. "In order to keep the hoots and hollers of 'unfair comparison' at a minimum, we designed the tests to be as fair and equitable as possible. We focussed on running tests that reflect how the user perceives the computing experience... And no, we didn't include processing-heavy modern software like Photoshop or Crysis! We selected very basic everyday functions that were performed equally by the 1980's and the 2007 Microsoft applications."

Comments

Tiny midget wizard.

[spun]

He likes ice cream. Spoon it right into the "cup holder" and he might grant you a wish!

Developer motivation

[chriss]

I cannot really agree with these tests that just compare "start up tasks" like opening a file or booting the OS. There often is a good reason not to focus too much on these events, because don't happen that often. Responsiveness during use is a better comparison, and this is much harder. Modern machines do a lot of things in the background, like running full blown TCP/IP stacks, something the Mac Plus could not have done. And while opening a file 0.2 seconds faster will not really improve my productivity by much, having instant access to Google and Wikipedia does.

But anyway: Here is a quote from Andy Hertzfeld about how Steve Jobs motivated them to make the Mac boot faster (taken from the documentary The triumph of the nerds by Robert X. Cringley.)

Steve was upset that the Mac took too long to boot to boot up when you first turned it on so he tried motivating Larry Kenyon by telling him well you know how many millions of people are going to buy this machine - it's going to be millions of people and let's imagine that you can make it boot five seconds faster well that's five seconds times a million every day that's fifty lifetimes, if you can shave five seconds off that you're saving fifty lives. And so it was a nice way of thinking about it, and we did get it to go faster.

Re:Developer motivation

[griffjon]

compare "start up tasks" like opening a file or booting the OS. There often is a good reason not to focus too much on these events, because don't happen that often.

Based on this post, I believe that you must use a Mac, and are just defending the poor 1986 mac.

You don't open files often, so you're not a Linux user. Those guys open files like crazy, all the time. Like, everything is a file to them, and then they open it.

You don't reboot often, so you're obviously not a Windows user.

Please be clear and reveal your personal biases in such important benchmark test discussions.

Re:Developer motivation

[digitalderbs]

if you can shave five seconds off that you're saving fifty lives

then getting people to ditch their computers completely is like curing cancer and AIDS.

Re:Developer motivation

[tyme]

griffjon wrote:

You don't open files often, so you're not a Linux user.

so, clearly, I cannot choose the cup in front of you.

You don't reboot often, so you're obviously not a Windows user.

so, clearly, I cannot choose the cup in front of me.

Lets compare a typewriter to a word processor.

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

As with this article, what really would that prove?

I think I would find my words per minute would not vary. The legibility of the document would be identical. I could even say that the typewriter is superior in some ways - for instance, my document autosaves on every keystroke.

Calling features "bloat" strikes me the same as when a person will call a reason an "excuse". There are times and places when "bloat" and "excuses" are valid words, but they can be inserted where they are invalid just as easily.

Perhaps the law of diminishing returns holds true. After all, a typewriter really is all one needs to write a novel, and in fact I do not think a computer helps one write a novel thousands of times more quickly. However, there are features (spell check, formatting, fonts, predictive text, voice recognition...) that enhance the writing experience.

I guess I just don't get the point of this article.

Slashdotted!

[rueger]

Guess we've established that the Mac Plus was not the best choice for hosting the web site?

glad someone did this comparison...

[sloth jr]

I've been troubled for years on how generational improvements in computation equipment don't seem to result in improved USER experience. Now, important to realize that in the comparisons selected, we're talking about 1-bit bit-mapped operations on a screen 512x368 in size (from memory - might have botched the Y coord limit). Might be interesting to see what happens on that PC when dropping the display to 640x480 and 256 colors. That'd be a little closer to apples-apples comparison.

I digress. The point is - nothing seems much better in the user experience than before, for the vast majority of things we do - and that includes MacOS X, to my thinking. Nothing that makes me jump up and down and twist and shout anyway. What apps have I added in the last 10 years? Music players. Video players. Browsers. Pretty much it. I wonder where the hell my 4.5 billion clock cycles a second are actually going.

I don't know - computing just doesn't seem very exciting anymore. Help.

sloth jr

Which is why I like vi...

[wandazulu]

I used vi on a VT100 attached to a vax running BSD back in 1990 and I use vi (vim) today on a MacBook Pro that could handle more simultaneous users than the vax did. It was always fast to start then, and it's fast to start today, though now I have colors, split windows, and a bajillion other features I struggle to remember.

It's interesting to see that the machines have gotten faster, software more complex, etc., etc., but software like vim just keeps on truckin'. Too bad we don't have more software like this.

The Anthropic Principle

[briglass]

The anthropic principle helps to explain why this comparison makes no sense. By virtue of the fact that both computers are market-ready and market-tested machines (especially in the highly successful Mac Plus), their usability speeds MUST be under or around market-acceptable levels. Otherwise, they would either not have survived alpha and beta testing or not have survived as a marketable product. What this comparison is really tapping into is the user-acceptable speed level, which has not changed since the 1980s (because humans haven't changed much).