Re: Apple II in Scientic American

["anoneds@netscape.net" <anoneds@netscape.net>]

Roger Johnstone wrote:
> In <d057mq$m05$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca> Ben Lai wrote:
> > I was reading the January issue of Scientific America on the plane
(
> > only thing available) and came across a column about robots, and
they
> > have a little chart comparing the "raw computing muscle" of all the

> > top machines of their time.  You can see it here:
> >
> > http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=30
> > &articleID=00078A55-0CE7-11BF-AD0683414B7F0000
> > (Just click on the "More on this article/SIDEBAR" part)
> >
> > First thing I noticed was the huge gap between the Apple II and
> > Commodore 64 - considering that they had basically the same
processor
> > that's a bit odd.  And then the Playstation2 being barely slower
than
> > a Dual G5, also a  bit out of touch.
> >
> > Oh well...
> >
> > Ben
>
> Yeah, someone screwed up the Apple II position on that graph. The C64
is
> in about the right position, but the Apple II is shown as running at
one
> tenth the number of instructions per second! A mean feat considering
> they use the same CPU running at the same clock speed.
>

Has anyone run any tests to generate the numbers used for this chart?
Seems to me that the C64 is too high on the graph, not that the Apple
is too low. Basically, the graph looks like BS to me anyway. But a C64
really shouldn't be that close to a PC of that era, and neither one
belongs in the same area as a VAX 11/780. Having worked on one during
that timeframe, and having a C64 to compare to it, they are very
different beasts.

I wonder how much money was poured into such worthless research...

Ben