IOCALL results and problems

[Holtman Jim]

> Larry McVoy writes:
> >I tend to agree with Dan.  I think what people would like to see is a 
> >benchmark which measures how well Unix, running multiple users, performs
> >on each machine.  The benchmark would have to measure something that did
> >not vary widely (such as I/O devices), as those results would only reflect
> >how much one had spent on the bus & disk.  So, how about this:
> >
> >The dryhstone benchmarks are considered good tests of the CPU (at least by 
> >me they are), but don't really test Unix at all (in fact some people run 
> >them in standalone mode).  How about a version, (called forkstone?), which
> >runs the dryhstone as 1, 2, 8, and 64 concurrent processes?  This would
> >show 1) the speed of the CPU, 2) first part of the curve, 8) a nice single
> >user level, and 64) what happens when you have multiple users.  
> >
> >It would not test I/O, which is a hard thing to test fairly.  It would get
> >rid of those Z80 dryhstones (flame, flame) as they're not multi tasking...
> >
> >I guess if there is any response and nobody wants to do it, I'll hack the
> >drystones.  I think it would be better if the original author did it, as
> >{s}he probably can understand that bastardized {C}Ada source.
> 
> I don't think that running multiple dhrystones would measure anything more
> than the cost of doing a context switch once every <scheduling granularity>.
> Except on a multiple processor machine, the time will be N*1 dhrystone +
> M context switches.  There are easier ways to measure the time to do a context
> switch.  If you want to measure multi-user response, you've GOT to open the
> IO can-of-worms, since they WILL be doing IO.
> 
> Rick Richardson, PC Research, Inc. (201) 922-1134
> ..!ihnp4!houxm!castor!{rer,pcrat!rer} <--Replies to here, not to homxb!!!
> 
> P.S. Rheinhold Weicker is the author of Dhrystone.  I apologize for
> creating the bastardized {C}Ada source from his original Ada!

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Results for VAX 8600 running SVR2

1.2   Real
1.1   System
0.0   User