----- Original Message ----- From: "Timothy Sipples" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 11:12 PM Subject: Re: PSI MIPS (was: Links to decent 'why the mainframe thrives' article)
>I'm sorry, Dean, but that statement borders on malpractice. If you focus >solely on the chip you're totally missing the point, because business >outcome <> two chips. > Why are we still focused on the chip in this >discussion? John Giltner makes an excellent point, and SPEC wouldn't give >you a clue about his situation. Also, the chips, though still important, >are probably the least important architectural component in delivering >reliability, fault tolerance, data integrity, and other service qualities. Because the original question was why there is a perception that mainframe processors are slow, relatively speaking. All of these other factors are very well known, and discussing them here is preaching to the choir. This is a mainframe list, after all, so I expect people to know the attributes of mainframes, but not necessarily those of other platforms (particularly when I see the comments about PCs being just for word processing). I sense that the defensiveness about this subject is a reaction to the perception here that the mainframe market is an embattled one, with mounting losses and so it has to be vigorously defended against all heretics. The discussion was about processor performance, and my comments have been intended to address that question, and nothing else. When all of the other attributes of the mainframe have been brought up, I've tried to just point out that other platforms have, or are acquiring, those features as well and get back to the performance issue. This seems to be considered a put down or a threat. The closest thing I've seen to useful information related to the original question was the data on how many instructions were required to emulate the instruction set, and the MIPS for the PSI systems vs. z9. That was interesting, and helps to answer the question about peformance, which I personally find interesting. Regards, Dean ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
