Charting the Response Surface

Computers are only one kind of system; there are many other electrical, mechanical, biological, and social systems around us. One favorite method of characterizing systems is called the Stimulus-Response model. The system is treated as a black box, and stimulated in a known way. The resulting response is noted, and a new stimulus is tried. In this way you gradually chart what is called the response surface.

We can do this with the computer. By applying known workloads and observing the response, we can learn about the system, and also about how it is viewed by the measurement tool. The program we use to apply known workloads to the computer system is called Response Probe.

We have included a copy of Response Probe on the floppy disk that accompanies this book. Appendix C explains how to use Response Probe.