IIGS vs. Mac LC, rematch

[pubpc1@library.ucla.edu]

Does anyone remember the 1991 June article in incider/a+ where they
compared the speed of a Transwarp equipped IIGS to a 16MHz Mac LC?
I always thought it strange that they would chose a 7.4MHz TWGS while
they had a cheaper, faster 9MHz Zip 9/64 they were reviewing for the
same issue (they also had a 10/64).

Also, they chose to put in a slow 40MB Vulcan while they could have
added a speedy DMA capable SCSI drive that was much cheaper to the
Apple HS SCSI card that they chose to include in the IIGS setup
anyway!

To make things right, I ran the test on a Zip equipped IIGS with a
fast hard drive.  The Zip was slowed down to 9MHz to simulate what
incider/a+ should have done with available hardware.  The results:


                  Mac LC        IIGS 7.4MHz      IIGS 9MHz

Boot to Finder    17.72           24.08           13.03
Copy 4 56K files
    to hard disk   2.26            4.28            2.66
Copy 4 56K files
  to floppy disk   8.69            9.18            8.54

Launch 16K
  document         8.65           20.22           13.01
Save 16K file
  as ASCII text    2.09            3.44            0.93

Justify 1 page
  newsletter       1.41            2.63            1.40
Resize page
  to fit           0.81            2.21            1.92


All times measured in seconds.  AWGS on IIGS and Microsoft Works on
the Mac LC.  9MHz IIGS was simulated by a 13.75MHz Zip slowed to 9MHz.

The results clearly show that a 9MHz Zip equipped IIGS with a fast
hard drive ran faster than a 16MHz Mac LC in 1991.  Furthermore, if a Zip
and SCSI hard drive were used instead of a TWGS and a Vulcan in the
incider tests, the price of the IIGS system would have droped to several
hundred dollars below a comparable Mac LC system!

-Scott G.