CONTACTS 

SUBJECTS
Subject, 06112
Macro 120 Process Report Spec
061122 Selection Command File, Configure
Performance Slower for SDS Reports than C11
Supersort, 910306
SDS Reports Slow under Windows
SDS Reports Delayed Screens, 920725
History of Supersort and Wordprocessing
Help for Slow Performance under W2K, Gordon
History of IC, PC
Micropro Developed Wordstar First Wordprocessor and Supersort, 010210

0913 -    ..
0914 - Summary/Objective
0915 -
091501 - Follow up ref SDS 37 0000, ref SDS 31 0000.
091502 -
091503 - On 010205 noticed faster c13 computer is 13 times slower doing SDS
091504 - reports than is the slower c12 computer. ref SDS 35 QL5K
091505 -
091506 - On 010205 identified following as problem code. ref SDS 37 UT3G
091507 -
091508 -
091509 -   s i 360 cr;no-r;s e:\sd\08\00000\06\00001;o 1Y001 k-out;no-o;cf 1z
091510 -
091511 - ...where 1z is.....
091512 -
091513 -    se ( fi 1 6 bt "990106","991231" or fi 1 6 bt "000101","010205") &
091514 -    and fi 75 88 ="03 00050 01 02" &
091515 -     and fi 15 19 = "00101"
091516 -    k=1 19 220 225 23 24;g
091517 -
091518 -    [On 010212 received idea to use work m. ref SDS 40 0001
091519 - ..
091520 - This seems to be a Supersort problem with selection.  Similar
091521 - problems occurred with Supersort on........
091522 -
091523 -        On 930422 Supersort was identified as causing similar problem.
091524 -        ref SDS 2 OV5L
091525 -
091526 -        On 930430 SDS performance was addressed as a disk caching
091527 -        problem. ref SDS 3 JY9O
091528 -
091529 -        On 950507 history of slow reporting was reviewed. ref SDS 5
091530 -        0001
091531 -
091532 -        On 960111 mode80 was used for something. ref SDS 6 0001
091533 -
091534 -        On 970729 same problem solved with buffers=99 under w95.
091535 -        ref SDS 18 CP4L
091536 -            ..
091537 -            On 980430 same problem solved again with buffers=99.
091538 -            ref SDS 23 9200
091539 -
091540 -            On 980831 same problem on new computer, solved again with
091541 -            buffers=99. ref SDS 24 2650
091542 -
091543 -            Difference may be that on prior occassions the problem was
091544 -            for short reports that read the disk, this problem is
091545 -            reading a single large file.  Reading the disk for short
091546 -            reports works perfectly.
091547 -
091548 -        On 970805 similar issue, but on building pointers using
091549 -        251.bat. ref SDS 20 0001  That problem was solved by updating
091550 -        video drivers on 970906. ref SDS 21 0001  Problem today is
091551 -        selecting records from large global pointer file.
091552 -
091553 -  ..
091554 - Today did Internet search for Supersort and found....
091555 -
091556 -     Some people report having replaced Supersort with Opt Tech Sort.
091557 -
091558 -        [On 010216 contacted Opt Tech Data Processing about purchasing
091559 -        Opt Tech Sort. ref SDS 42 0001
091560 -
091561 -     History of Supersort development...
091562 -
091563 -
091564 -           http://www.calweb.com/~edbbs/news/hist04.htm
091565 -
091566 -
091567 -     ...which is a paper published by 24K News, and written by the
091568 -     publisher, George Buttles....
091569 -
091570 -
091571 -          http://www.calweb.com/~edbbs/news/
091572 -
091573 -
091574 -     ....whose email address is....
091575 -
091576 -                   buttles@calweb.com
091577 -
091578 -     24K News is a publication for a computer user group in El Dorado,
091579 -     CA.  They have a section for meeting minutes....
091580 -
091581 -             http://www.calweb.com/~edbbs/news/meetmin.htm
091582 -
091583 -     ...which might benefit from Com Metrics, as illustrated by the
091584 -     record of meetings for SRI on Knowledge Management last year,
091585 -     reported in the record on 001017. ref SDS 33 1575
091586 -
091587 -
091588 -  ..
091589 -
091590 - History of Supersort is part of the history about word processing.
091591 - ref OF 1 0001
091592 -
091593 - This supplements history of PC on.....
091594 -
091595 -        960304 history of computer chips, ref SDS 7 8400, including
091596 -        Moore's Law. ref SDS 7 4004
091597 -
091598 -        960612 history of PC industry shows comedy of errors.
091599 -        ref SDS 8 2222
091600 -
091601 -        000305 Ted Nelson tried to apply PCs usefully with Xanadu.
091602 -        ref SDS 32 7245
091603 -
091604 -        001114 Doug Engelbart honored for developing mouse and linking
091605 -        so PCs can augment human competence; awarded National Medal of
091606 -        Technology. ref SDS 34 0001
091607 - ..
091608 - The author maintains that wordprocessing was the first "killer
091609 - application," a significant achievement in the history of computing.
091610 - ref OF 1 YU9O
091611 -
091612 -     Supersort and a wordprocessing program, Wordmaster, were the first
091613 -     products developed by Micropro, which was formed by employees from
091614 -     IMSAI. ref OF 1 004Q  One source maintains these programs were
091615 -     actually created at IMSAI, which was a computer manufacturer in
091616 -     San Leandro, CA, where the founders of Micropro worked, before
091617 -     leaving to form Micropro because IMSAI refused to market software.
091618 -     ref OF 1 006P
091619 -     ..
091620 -     Rob Barnaby is credited with doing the work on Supersort and
091621 -     Wordmaster, which was written in assembly. ref OF 1 004Q
091622 -
091623 -          Steve Horwitz
091624 -          stevehorwitz@yahoo.com
091625 -
091626 -          On 020325 Steve bumped into SDS records on the Internet and
091627 -          wrote us a letter saying he worked at Micropro from 1980 to
091628 -          1982 and he developed improvements, which he called a "C"
091629 -          wrapper on top of Supersort and was called FormSort.  There
091630 -          was also something called CQL, which have been part of
091631 -          FormSort or separate. Not sure.
091632 -
091633 -     Wordstar evolved from improvements of Wordmaster, and is credited
091634 -     for revolutionizing wordprocessing, and by extension the PC.
091635 -     ref OF 1 656I   Rob Barnaby is further cited as the genius of
091636 -     assembly programming who did most of the work on Wordstar.
091637 -     ref OF 1 IM9M
091638 -
091639 -  ..
091640 - There is an Internet location for Supersort.....
091641 -
091642 -        http://www.triousa.com/SuperSort/SSprice.htm
091643 -
091644 -     The most current program is still 2.0.9, which we have from 1987,
091645 -     and costs $150.
091646 -
091647 -        Includes 90 days of unlimited technical support via email.
091648 -
091649 -        Trio Company
091650 -        3290 Genesee Street
091651 -        Cheektowaga, NY 14225
091652 -
091653 -        Phone:  (716) 614-1450
091654 -
091655 -  ..
091656 - Called and talked to Gordon.
091657 -
091662 - Gordon seemed to indicate that he worked for Micropro when Supersort
091663 - was marketed, so he has been with the product for all these years.
091664 -
091665 - Explained problem using Supersort, reported on 010102, per above.
091666 - ref SDS 0 0001
091667 -
091668 -      1.  Performance is 13 times slower on a 1.4GHz 400MHz bus, and
091669 -          high performance disk drive, than doing same opertion on
091670 -          650 MHz 100 MHzbus, both using Windows 2000 os.
091671 -          ..
091672 -      2.  Both sort the file in same time,
091673 -
091674 -      3.  Selection, however, is 13 times slower on faster machine.
091675 -
091676 - Gordon is not a programmer.
091677 -
091678 - He indicated having met briefly in the past few years with the
091679 - original programmer, cited above as Rob Barnaby, during a social
091680 - event. ref SDS 0 EQ8H  However, there is evidently not a relationship
091681 - where Rob can be contacted about improvements to Supersort.
091682 - ..
091683 - Gordon suggested trying to the entire specification in a command
091684 - file.
091685 -
091686 - While we talked, I tried this....
091687 -
091688 -        i 360 cr
091689 -        no-r
091690 -        s e:\sd\08\00000\06\00001
091691 -        o c:\09\1Y001 k-out
091692 -        work f
091693 -        no-o
091694 -        se (fi 1 6 bt "990106","991231" or fi 1 6 bt "000101","010205") &
091695 -        and fi 75 88 ="03 00050 01 02" &
091696 -         and fi 15 19 = "00101"
091697 -        k=1 19 220 225 23 24
091698 -        go
091699 -
091700 - ....it did not improve performance; still takes 13 seconds.
091701 -
091702 -   [On 010214 appears that setting files=13 in config.nt on c13 can
091703 -   reduce processing time from 13 to 9 seconds; still 9 times slower
091704 -   than using a slower 650 GHz processor on c12. ref SDS 41 QL5K
091705 - ..
091706 - Gordon recalled some ideas about using Supersort that might
091707 - solve our problem.  He will investigate on Monday, when he returns to
091708 - his office, and will call or send a letter with his ideas.
091709 -
091710 -    [On 010212 received idea to use work m. ref SDS 40 0001
091711 -
091712 -
091713 -
091714 -
091715 -
091716 -
091717 -