benchmark from Princeton: Windows-NT vs. CP/M

Windows-NT vs. CP/M

Microsoft has come out with a number of benchmarks and comparison
papers championing the fact that Windows-NT is much better than Linux.
... I've decided to create my own comparison. Not of Windows-NT
vs. Linux, that's been done. But of Windows-NT vs. CP/M.

CP/M for those of you who don't remember was one of the first portable
operating systems. It ran on 8 bit 8080 class hardware, and was a
single user, floppy based system. ...

... The CP/M system is a Kaypro-II running a 2MHZ Z80, with 64K of
memory and dual 360K 5-1/4 floppies. The Windows-NT system runs quad
500 MHZ Pentium Processors, with 2GB of memory and 1TB of disk space.
... Microsoft seems to like to use a system like this for all its
benchmark comparisons.

Performance

The CP/M system with Word* and after a 15 second boot Word* let me
write documents as fast as I could type. In my two minute test, I
could enter about 210 words. The Windows-NT system ... took a
whole minute to boot up. Thus I could enter only 120 words in my
test. So we can conclude that CM/P is 75% faster than Windows-NT for
word processing.

...spreadsheet performance. CP/M with Calc* ... I can enter about 17
transaction in a two minute test. With Windows-NT with Excel, I get
only 10 ... CP/M is 70% faster than Windows-NT.

Conclusion: CP/M provides superior overall performance for common
office applications.

Security

CP/M is an extremely secure system. It relies on the physical
security methodology. You store ... on 5-1/4" floppies. ...

... we can put our software on one floppy and the data on the other.
The software floppy can be write protected, and nothing we do can change
any of those files. Windows-NT relies on file system security and
passwords. There have been lots of studies about the weaknesses of
passwords. ...

Add to that that Windows-NT connects to a network and allows remote
access and you have big security problems. ...

... Windows-NT is certified by the government for C3 security.
... that was only for a certain version of Windows-NT (which they no
longer support) ...

Conclusion: The security of CP/M is vastly superior to Windows-NT.

Stability

As far as I know the CP/M system for my Kaypro has not needed an
upgrade or patch for the past ten years. ...
During that time Microsoft has two major release of Window-NT, at least
5 service packs and is planning on replacing the system with a new
version ...
companies reboot their Windows-NT systems weekly to avoid system
crashes that come when you leave Windows-NT running for too long.

Conclusion: CP/M is much more stable than Windows-NT.

Cost of ownership

You can probably pick up a Kaypro-II with CP/M, Word* and Calc* at a
garage sale for about $10. ...

Customer Testimonials

... Note: We are use the definition ... as defined by Microsoft Marketing.
          Customer Testimonials - Stories about how well the operating
          system works for the operating system you like.

       Anecdotal Evidence - Stories about how well the operating system
       works for the operating system you don't like.

Conclusion

... Comparisons like this one should always be scrutinized for relevance
and bias before you put any faith into them.
  Coming soon, we will compare a Windows-NT system vs. a brick. I'm not
going to give away the ending, but I'm going to bet that the brick ...

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~eschmidt/doc/jokes/english/cs_winnt_cpm.txt

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Received on Fri Aug 26 13:44:13 2005