[Info-vax] VMS on Raspberry Pi 5

[Chris Townley]

On 13/11/2023 22:00, Martin Gregorie wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Nov 2023 17:36:53 +0000, Chris Townley wrote:
> 
>> On 13/11/2023 17:32, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>> On 2023-11-13, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 11/13/2023 5:26 AM, Pancho wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I don't really know the performance penalty of emulators.
>>>>
>>>> The overhead of a non-JIT instruction set emulation must be huge.
>>>
>>> Back in my Amiga days, I played with the Transformer, a software
>>> emulation of an 8088 on a 68000.  It would run MS-DOS, but very slowly
>>> - I figured about a 10x slowdown.
>>> Once just for giggles I ran Z80MU (a Z80 emulation for MS-DOS) under
>>> the Transformer.  Under these two levels of emulation I fired up the
>>> CP/M BASIC interpreter and typed "PRINT SIN(whatever)".  It came back
>>> with the correct answer - 7 seconds later.
>>>
>>>
>> That sounds like the Sinclair scientific calculator in the early 70s
> 
> I had one of the really small 4 function calculators in 1975. IIRC it
> wasn't all that slow (similar speed to a slide rule if each calculation
> required both slide and cursor to be moved for each calculation) but its
> main drawbacks was being really too small and fiddly, I used to be pretty
> good with the mechanical, electrically driven FACIT desktop calculators
> and I'd say the Sinclairs were just a little faster than those Facits.
> 
> However, I got an HP 21 (RPN0 calculator in 1977 and that was much faster
> AND much stronger and better made: still have it and it still works, but
> got an HP 21 (programmable too). That got replaced by an HP 28s in 1990
> and is still in daily use.
>
No this was the earlier scientific calculator, and a few years earlier. 
When you pressed a function, the screen would go blank for about 7 
seconds. |But at the time, and the price it was phenomenal!

-- 
Chris