Re: Ada95 speed

["Clifford J. Nelson" <cnelson9@gte.net>]

"James E. Hopper" wrote:

> In article <3753DA33.F2E088A0@gte.net>, Clifford J. Nelson
> <cnelson9@gte.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > I haven't been programming micro computers for the last ten years. I have
> > been using Mathematica since about 1989. See:
> > http://forum.swarthmore.edu/epigone/geometry-research/brydilyum
> >
> > From 1976 to 1989 I programmed a few micro computers and I remember just
> > storing the result of some computations in memory, and then setting the video
> > pointer to that area of memory. It took a few micro seconds to display the
> > result of the computations. All my experience with desk top computers
> > contradicts yours. They were very easy to program efficiently. Now that I
> > have something to program I find that the computers don't live up to
> > expectations anymore.
> >
> >     Cliff Nelson
>
> you can do the same thing with the mac if you know what your are doing,
> in fact its pretty transparent.  what i did on my version a couple
> years ago is just what the gentleman with the pc pointed out, i created
> an array, stored results in it, blitted it to the screen.  the blit
> took a few milliseconds.  the entire display process was similarly
> fast.  if i wanted to get faster yet, i could have allocated my array
> on the video card like you are suggesting you could do with old micros,
> and then you even save the milliseconds for the blit.  just because its
> not obvious to the most unqualified observer doesnt make it that hard.
> mac programmers have been doing this kind of thing for years from 12
> year olds on up.
>

If it were "pretty transparent" for people "from 12 year olds on up" I am sure
that you would have just posted the program. But, you will probably not post the
program because everyone could then see my point.

>
> i HAVE spent the last 25 years programming everthing from your micros,
> to desktop machines to super computers.  your point has NO validity in
> my experience.  if you know what you are doing, programs worked faster
> then as they do now, if you didnt they worked slower.
>
> you seem to want to compare a time when you knew what you were doing
> (using micros) to a time when you know far less using desktop machines.
> thats not a fair comparision.  i know for a fact that only people who
> knew a lot about programming could get the old micros to do anythign
> useful.  a mathemitician or physisist or other tech specialist who
> tried to use them tended to bounce hard unless they spent a lot of time
> studying them.
>
> given that i am one of those self same physicists who spent a great
> deal of time as a grad student learning to use the old 8 bit single
> board computers (while watching my professors fail at it) i know what i
> am talking about.
>
> jim

A "micro computer" and a "desktop computer" are the same thing. I new physicists
in 1971 who wrote programs in compiled basic for micro computers. All versions of
the basic language were compiled, not interpreted. They all had matrix math
primitives built in. But, when the so called computer revolution of commercially
sold micro computers (i.e. desktop computers) came, all versions of the basic
language were interpreted, not compiled, and did not have matrix math primitives
built in. My computer instructor said that "job security programming" which was
the art of writing tricky cryptic code to make oneself indispensable was a thing
of the past. He could not have guessed that it hadn't even started. He had not
seen the operating systems like Mac OS and Windows and unix!

   Cliff Nelson