Laptop Reviews and Benchmarks
Reviews
There were a few reviews of Unix and RISC laptops in the 90s, mainly testing and evaluating them as transportable workstations.
Will be extended.
- PowerPC Hits the Road, BYTE Magazine, July 1994 archive.org
- SPARC Workstations to Go, BYTE Magazine, August 1994, archive.org
- SPARCs on the Road, BYTE Magazine, May 1992, archive.org
- Unix on a Notebook, BYTE Magazine, October 1993archive.org
- SPARC Workstations to Go, BYTE Magazine, August 1994, archive.org
- SparcBook 3XP, BYTE Magazine, June 1995, archive.org
- Big Blue Buys Into Windows CE!, IBM Windows CE WorkPad z50!, Handheld PC Magazine (September 1999) archive.org
Benchmarks
Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:
| System | CPU | SPEC92int | SPEC92fp | SPEC95int | SPEC95fp | MIPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tadpole SPARCbook 1 | CY7C600 SPARC 25MHz | ~18 | ||||
| Tadpole SPARCbook 2 | CY6111 SPARC 40MHz | 21* | 21* | ~30 | ||
| Hitachi 3050RX/100C | PA/50L 33MHz | ~42 | ||||
| RDI PowerLite 50 | microSPARC 50MHz | 26 | 21 | |||
| SPARCbook 3 | microSPARC 50MHz | 26 | 21 | ~59 | ||
| RS/6000 N40 | PowerPC 601 50MHz | 41 | 51 | |||
| IBM WorkPad z50 | NEC VR4121 131MHz | 72 | ||||
| Sun SPARC Voyager | microSPARC-II 60MHz | 46 | 36 | |||
| RDI PowerLite 85 | microSPARC-II 85MHz | 64 | 54 | |||
| SPARCbook 3XP | microSPARC-II 85 MHz | 64 | 54 | |||
| SAIC Talon | HP PA-7100LC 60MHz | 67 | 85 | 2.08 | 2.66 | |
| RDI PowerLite 110 | microSPARC-II 110MHz | 77 | 65 | |||
| SPARCbook 3GX | microSPARC-II 110 MHz | 78 | 65 | ~134 | ||
| RDI PowerLite 170 | TurboSPARC 170MHz | 3.08 | 2.74 | |||
| Tadpole ALPHAbook* | DEC 21066A 233MHz | 94 | 110 | |||
| SAIC Galaxy 1100 | HP PA-7100LC 80MHz | 99 | 122 | 3.12 | 3.55 | |
| IBM ThinkPad 850* | PowerPC 603e 100MHz | 120 | 105 | |||
| SPARCbook 3000 | TurboSPARC 170MHz | 143 | 119 | 3.50 | 3.00 | |
| SPARCbook 3TX | TurboSPARC 170MHz | 3.50 | 3.00 | |||
| IBM RS/6000 860 | PowerPC 603e 166MHz | 3.94 | 2.71 | |||
| RDI UltraBook 170 | UltraSPARC 166MHz | ?265.3 | ?354.6 | 5.56 | 8.06 | |
| RDI PrecisionBook 132 | PA-7300LC 132MHz | 6.49 | 6.54 | |||
| UltraBook 200 | Sun UltraSPARC 200MHz | 322.0 | 462.0 | 7.44 | 10.40 | |
| RDI PrecisionBook 160 | PA-7300LC 160MHz | 7.78 | 7.39 | |||
| RDI PrecisionBook 180 | PA-7300LC 180MHz | 9.22 | 9.43 | |||
| RDI UltraBook IIi | UltraSPARC IIi 400MHz | 17.90 | 20.60 | |||
| Comparisons | ||||||
| Siemens SCENIC 1000 | Pentium II 333MHz | 13.0 | 9.43 | |||
| SGI O2 | MIPS R10000 196MHz | 10.1 | 8.77 | |||
| Intel Alder | Pentium Pro 200MHz | 8.09 | 6.75 | |||
| Sun Ultra 2 1170 | UltraSPARC 167MHz | 6.34 | 9.33 | |||
| DEC Alphastation 255 | DEC 21064A 233MHz | 4.27 | 5.09 | |||
| Siemens PCE-5S | Pentium 100MHz | 96 | 81 | 4.04 | 2.35 | 79 |
| SPARCstation 20/71 | SuperSPARC II 75MHz | 125 | 121 | 3.11 | 3.10 | |
| Intel | i486DX2 66MHz | 32 | 16 | 31 | ||
Further reading
- SPEC92 and SPEC95 Benchmark Results, OpenPA PA-RISC resource (2024)
- spectable,v – reported SPEC95 and SPEC92 CINT/CFP benchmark results, John DiMarco (December 2000, 5.208) archive.org
- spectable,v – reported SPEC89 and SPEC92 CPU benchmark results, John DiMarco (January 1994, 2.2) gsi
- SPEC Benchmark CINT92 Summary, Netlib Performance Repository (2000) archive.org
- All of the SPECint95 Results Published by SPEC, Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (2000) archive.org
- All of the SPECfp95 Results Published by SPEC, Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (2000) archive.org
- dhyrstone MIPS results, PDS: The Performance Database Server (2000) archive.org
- Computer Speed Claims 1980 to 1996 (MIPS, MFLOPS), Roy Longbottom (n.d.)