Footnote on 16-bit memory, caching, and performance degradation

[Clinton Jeffery]

Thanks to all who have posted figures on how much slower their UNIX runs
when 16-bit memory is used.  The figures ranged from 10-40%, despite the
alleged high hit-rates of the cache.  There is a good reason for this
wide variation: the cache technology (write through vs. write back) makes
a big difference.  In addition, programs that manipulate large amounts
of data are going to suffer relative to programs which are code intensive
on machines with write-through caching.
-- 
| Clint Jeffery, U. of Arizona Dept. of Computer Science
| cjeffery at arizona.edu -or- {noao allegra}!arizona!cjeffery
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