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Aucbvax.2805 fa.unix-wizards utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards Tue Aug 25 19:15:09 1981 PUZZLE.PAS Makes the news >From Nowicki@PARC-MAXC Tue Aug 25 11:45:55 1981 >From Information Systems News, Monday August 24, 1981

"Amdahl's Version of Unix Wins In Benchmark Test" by Paul E. Schindler, Jr.

... A Puzzle benchmark program was written in several languages, including C-language and Pascal, as part of the course work for a one-week session on code optimization held recently at Stanford University under the auspices of the Wang Insitute of Graduate Studies, and the Computer Science Departments of Stanford and the University of Santa Clara.

The fastest running time for the C-language version was 3.5 seconds on a Digital Equipment Corp. VAX 11/780; the Pascal version ran in two seconds on an experimental Stanford computer [I think they mean the S-1].

Evan Adams, an Amdahl systems programmer taking the course, used Amdahl's version of Unix, the Universal Time-Sharing system (UTS), to compile and run the benchmark program. Running time was 0.66 seconds, a five-fold improvement, Adams said.

...

[ The article then degenerates into a discussion of how in the world Unix could be worth anything without a COBOL compiler. They do say that a 470 can support 200 users in Unix, which runs under VM. It costs $3,000 a month AFTER a source license. As with most benchmarks the 0.66 second figure should be taken with a grain of salt. The article does not even mention which model 470 this was on, or how much such a machine would cost, or how "hacked" the code was. As another useless comparison, the same program takes about 10 seconds on an 8MHz 68000. ]

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