[rescue] emulation fun

[Lionel Peterson]

On Feb 2, 2009, at 8:42 AM, "Sheldon T. Hall" <shel at artell.net> wrote:

> Quoth Mark Benson ...
>
>> Do those of you that are old enough to remember mainframes
>> like this not
>> find it a tad weird that you can emulate a whole mainframe
>> computer that
>> used to take up a large room on a normal desktop PC? It's rational,
>> given how much computers have developed, but surely it's still a
>> slightly odd feeling :)
>
> Having been in some part of the DP/IT/software business almost  
> continuously
> since my early-seventies mainframe days, I've gotten used to it.   
> Still,
> yeah, it's odd to contemplate that the Nokia "Internet Tablet" I'm  
> playing
> with now is more powerful than my first mainframe.  Hell, my Timex  
> Datalink
> watch probably gives that old NCR 315 a run for its money ...

Execution of code doesn't equate to capable of handling the same  
workload. Mainframes have I/O throughput that PCs can't touch.

It would be interesting to identify/calculate the lag where a PC can  
equal the throughput of a particular mainframe model/series. (for  
example, a current model Dell 2950 8-core Xeon, SAS drives equals the  
performance and throughput of an IBM 3090/200)

Lionel