[rescue] those who should be shot

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Fri, Mar 01, 2002 at 04:06:31PM -0500, Brent B. Powers wrote:
> >>>>> "Kurt" == Kurt Huhn <kurt at k-huhn.com> writes:
> 
>     >> I thought it was a funny intentional mis-interpretation of the
>     >> original posting.  Kinda like a PC user saying that a beautiful
>     >> Tyan Mobo should be put in a POS SGI case.  Of course, a red
>     >> neck should prefer the superior bone grinding torq that an SGI
>     >> puts out (metaphorically speaking of course) compared to the
>     >> riced out high RPM (err Mhz) Intel machines (and AMDs also).
>     >> 
>     >> I kinda like that analogy.  An SGI is somewhere between a big
>     >> block chrysler muscle car and a Mack truck, and a PC is a
>     >> Sentra with a heavily modified stock 4-banger engine, fancy air
>     >> filters and exhaust, suspesion, etc.  Maybe higher end PCs are
>     >> like... Like an old Lotus?  That just doesn't sound right
>     >> though...  Oh, I picked lotus because they used to be 4 cyl
>     >> engineers in the espirit.
>     >> 
> 
>     Kurt> I like this analogy - being a car-geek too, this made me
>     Kurt> smile.
> 
> Oh, awful. That esprit, depending on which generation, put 240 HP out
> of those 4 cylinders. No, I think you've got the analogy
> reversed. PC's are like 60's muscle cars... god awful fast, no
> elegance to the engineering, and hard as hell to control in the
> corners.

That's why I was hesitant to use lotus.  Perhaps Honda s2000 would have been
a better choice.

BTW, I thought for awhile the 4banger esprit was hitting just over 300hp.
I keep seeing references to 264HP and references to modding it to over 300,
but these are all for newer cars.  My memory (which I'm having trouble 
verifying) is that when they were over 300 was back before the v8 was out.

The beauty of comparing a PC to 4 bangers is that the high clock rates of PCs
really line up with the high RPMs of such cars, but the fact that PCs have
trouble with real work, just like most small 4 cyl. cars would too.  I mean,
can you really put 5 large people and a bunch of gear in a s2000 and still
have it perform decently?  You should be able to in a mustang.

On the other hand, there is a certain appeal to comparing SGIs to the nicer
european sports cars.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd