The Xerox Dorado, an ECL beast evolved from the Alto, was considered the only machine to offer a good Smalltalk experience when Smalltalk-80 was initially released. The Xerox Dolphin, for example, was only about "0.1 Dorados" despite being a serious improvement on the Alto. The Apple Lisa was only about 0.05 Dorados.
That level of performance was only achieved by PCs when we got 50MHz 486 (for purely interpreted Smalltalk-80 virtual machines, with JITs much slower computers could match the Dorado).
That level of performance was only achieved by PCs when we got 50MHz 486 (for purely interpreted Smalltalk-80 virtual machines, with JITs much slower computers could match the Dorado).