[6497] in s-news-athena
S-Plus on laptops (Summary)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul Schwarz)
Thu Feb 23 09:47:39 1995
To: s-news@utstat.toronto.edu
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 09:15:11 -0500
From: Paul Schwarz <schwarz@TC.Cornell.EDU>
Folks,
I received 17 responses to my query regarding using S-Plus on laptop
computers. Appended below are my original questions plus a summary of the
opinions I received.
> I have two basic questions:
>
> 1) I'm considering a laptop with a DX4/100-based CPU. While this surely
> would be an adequate processor on a desktop computer with a secondary
> (level 2) cache, most laptops do not have a secondary cache. Have
> folks found that the performance of DX4/100-based laptops to be
> adequate? Or should I wait another month or two for Pentium-based
> laptops to become available?
Nearly all of the respondents indicated that they were either satisfied or
pleased with the performance of S-Plus for Windows on their laptop
computers. In fact, no one suggested that I wait for Pentium-based
laptops to become more readily available. Furthermore, most of the
respondents indicated that they were using S-Plus on a DX2-based machines.
So presumably the performance on a DX4/100 computer would be even better.
I have to admit that I was a bit surprised by the degree of consensus in
the responses to this question. By the way, no one offered any opinions
regarding UNIX-based (or SPARC) laptops.
> 2) I understand that 8 Mb of memory is required for the Windows version of
> S-Plus. However, my experience has been that the minimum configuration
> is often/usually not adequate. Is 16 Mb of memory sufficient or should
> I consider purchasing even more?
The respondents were more divided in their opinions regarding this
question. Most felt that 16-20 MB was necessary and sufficient for their
work. However, three people indicated that they were satisfied with the
performance of S-Plus with only 8 MB. One person believed 16 MB was the
"bare minimum" and that he now has 40 MB. In general, it seemed that if
you can afford the cost, additional memory is a good investment. As an
aside, memory and the quality of the display appear to the be the most
significant factors controlling the price of a laptop. So adding
additional memory can significantly affect the price. Also many laptop
manufacturers use a "memory module" that must be completely replaced if
additional memory is desired. Therefore the decision regarding the amount
of memory is best made at the time of the purchase of the computer.
> By the way, has anyone tried to run the MS-Windows version of S-PLUS under
> the new OS/2 Warp operating system?
I received only two responses regarding the use of S-Plus under OS/2 Warp,
but both were enthusiastic about the 32-bit, true multi-tasking nature of
Warp and wished that StatSci would market a version of S-Plus with native
support for OS/2.
Thanks again for your comments and advice.
-Paul Schwarz
schwarz@tc.cornell.edu
