Re: need 1985 machine spec

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

salfter@salfter.dyndns.org (Scott Alfter) wrote:

>Greg Weston  <gwestonREMOVE@CAPSattbi.com> wrote:
>>In article <a27mp8$uh1$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk>, Simon Poole
>><lumo@spoole.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote:
>>> Would anybody out there happen to know the average processor speed of an
>>> Apple computer in 1985?
>>
>>The average processor speed of an Apple computer?
>>
>>As shipped, the whole Apple II line up through 1985 (and somewhat
>>beyond) had a 1MHz (actually marginally higher) 6502 or 65C02...
>>
>>Since you say "Apple" instead of Apple II specifically, I'll mention
>>that the Macintosh line from 1/84 until 2/87 was solely produced with a
>>7.78MHz 68000.
>
>There were also the Lisa and Apple III.  The Lisa ran a 68K @ 5 MHz.  The
>Apple III, IIRC, ran a 6502 at 1 or 2 MHz (selectable)...the slower speed
>would've been for backward compatibility with the II.

It is important to note that clock speed does not always equate to
processor speed when comparing across two different processor
lines.  If the intent of the original question was the measure the
speed of Apple computers relative to IBM PCs, the Apple II was
not 4x slower than an IBM PC even though the IBM PC ran at a
clock speed of 4.77Mhz.  In acutality, the Apple II was about the
same speed as the original IBM PC (and I had an XT to play with
to prove it).

Apple has historically got a lot of grief for having processors with
high IPCs (instructions per clock).  Just like Motorola had and
most recently, AMD has.  The most recent illustration of this
trend is the Pentium 4.  For the first time in the history of Intel,
they have released a processor with a LOWER IPC than the one
it replaced.  The Pentium III was nearly as fast as AMD's Athlon
per clock but in order to achieve a marketing coup over AMD,
Intel designed the Pentium 4 to have a much lower IPC than the
Pentium III.  You read it right, per clock the Pentium 4 is inferior
to the Pentium III.  But this lets Intel claim the crown for clock
speed.  A processor with a lower IPC is easier to push to a higher
Mhz rating.  It doesn't do more, it just has a higher Mhz number.