Amix Vs Next Step 0.8

[redblade]

Hi.

I was wondering if any one can tell me what ran faster between the first Next box that was released with a 030@25mhz and the A3000UX at 030@25mhz with the same amount of RAM (8MB).

I know that Next had a 4 level grey scale 1120×832 resolution screen (wikipedia, 1120x832x2). Just want to know how responsive the GUI was on Next, my experience with Amix on WinUAE seems to work best when it is running on the 2410 graphics card, maybe the a2024 is good to compare with it.

I wont lie I really do like the screen shots of Next Step 0.8, it really does look professional.

Amix also seems to come with a lot of BSD tools as well.

Thanks

[gulliver]

The Next Cube 030@25mhz had a cpu performance of 15 MIPS, and the A3000UX of 25 MIPS. So in terms of raw performance, the A3000UX was clearly superior by a huge margin.

The Cube took a very long time to boot 0.8, while the A3000UX was pretty fast compared against it.

On the other hand, the GUI on the Next was far superior than the Amix one, which was rather rudimentary and lacked the polish, and PostScript capabilities the Next had.

The A3000UX was designed, as many Unix machines of that era, to be run from the Shell, not from its GUI which was viewed just as bonus/accessory. The Next Cube was the black sheep of that era, proposing the exact opposite paradigm.

Amix was not BSD, but a true Unix System V.

[trixster]

An A3000UX with 25Mhz 030 delivers 25MIPs...???

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by trixster

An A3000UX with 25Mhz 030 delivers 25MIPs...???

We are not talking about SysInfo MIPS here.

[Beska]

Not a fair comparison. Comparing boot times of an 030 NeXT to an A3000UX is like comparing apples to oranges. They both used different storage devices. The 030 NeXT used a magneto optical drive which was terribly slow vs the hard disk the A3000UX used.

[trixster]

Originally Posted by gulliver

We are not talking about SysInfo MIPS here.

What are we talking about?

[Leo24]

Both had a MC68030@25MHz+MC68882@25MHz. I terms of raw computation power, both were the same.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by Beska

Not a fair comparison. Comparing boot times of an 030 NeXT to an A3000UX is like comparing apples to oranges. They both used different storage devices. The 030 NeXT used a magneto optical drive which was terribly slow vs the hard disk the A3000UX used.

True, but then that was what the original poster wanted to know.

These are two different architecture based machines, running two different OSes with two different GUIs.

What the OP proposed was never a fair game.

@Leo24

In raw yes, but raw is never a real case, because you need to take into account all other factors that make a computer, and even then, you would also need to evaluate the benchmark used.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Leo24

Both had a MC68030@25MHz+MC68882@25MHz. I terms of raw computation power, both were the same.

I am sure the FastRAM-Interface of the A3000 is much faster than the one of the NextCube.
The NeXT was designed around 86 and only because of production delays it was released in 88/89 .. so it had to work with slower RAM.
Back then a couple of year made a tremendous difference!

probably 110ns RAM (NeXT) vs 80 or 70ns RAM (A3000).

[redblade]

Originally Posted by Beska

Not a fair comparison. Comparing boot times of an 030 NeXT to an A3000UX is like comparing apples to oranges. They both used different storage devices. The 030 NeXT used a magneto optical drive which was terribly slow vs the hard disk the A3000UX used.

Hi.
Yes I forgot about the magneto optical drive. I wanted to get peoples opinions and experiences on different 68030@25mhz unix systems. But yes if we can compare Amix to a NeXT Step that ran on a HDD, that would be better.

[redblade]

Originally Posted by Gorf

I am sure the FastRAM-Interface of the A3000 is much faster than the one of the NextCube.
The NeXT was designed around 86 and only because of production delays it was released in 88/89 .. so it had to work with slower RAM.
Back then a couple of year made a tremendous difference!

probably 110ns RAM (NeXT) vs 80 or 70ns RAM (A3000).

I was amazed when I read the early review and saw that it shipped with 8MB at the end of the 80s. To be fair I also saw an advert for a RAM expansion in 92/93 for the A3000 that supported 64MB RAM, I also thought that was a lot and was targeting a very niche market.

Using SIMMs does make RAM expansion easier.

[mousehouse]

Playing with AMIX now it does truly feel like C= completely missed the boat on this. In the middle of the UNIX wars there were plenty of people that wanted AT&Ts version because of specific software to run. It's pretty speedy even on a 030/25 with 8megs. I worked on HPUX for many years, initially on 68030s as well, PA-RISC versions later on. If they had done anything right with it we might have seen the A3000+ with integrated graphics that would have made life really hard for the other vendors. And then in 93 SGI launched the Indy ;-)

I've only seen the NeXt cube once and I remember loving the Display Postscript display, just beautiful.

[redblade]

I'm guessing the SYS VR4 software was networking and CAD?? Or can you list others? First time I used NetBSD was in 2003, I tried playing with Minix in 98, 99 on my Amiga 500 but was a bit difficult. I was reading that a lot of universities offered UNIX courses for computer science and the licensing costs were expensive.