SparcStation Performance

[Kemp at dockmaster.ncsc.mil]

David DiGiacomo writes:
 > This happens because the system is spending a lot of time in the boot
 > PROM console terminal emulator with interrupts disabled.

That brings up something that has been bothering me ever since we got our
4/110 - the console is SLOW!  Our little 3/60's put text up on the console
much faster than the 4/110 which is rated at more than twice the MIPS.
Now we have 12.5 MIPS SPARCstation-1's, and their console performance is
not one bit better.

What did Sun do in that ROM anyway?  Write the font blit code in FORTH?
And then write the FORTH interpreter in TINY BASIC???  :-)

Running SunView isn't always an option; at least I haven't found out how
to run it from the miniroot.  And waiting for the slow console can be a
real drag when you're doing a "tar xv".  It even slows down booting.  The
3/60 loads a 500K vmunix from sd0 in about 3.2 seconds, but the 4/60 takes
nearly 7 seconds to load its 700K vmunix.  At first I thought a crummy
SCSI driver was to blame, but I now suspect that the little rotating
propeller (and the abysmal console performance) is the culprit.

This obviously isn't a terribly important issue, but it does irk me that
my hot new machine is so much slower than the trusty ol' 3/60.

   Dave Kemp <Kemp at dockmaster.ncsc.mil>