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Aucbvax.2667 fa.works utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!works Thu Aug 13 05:02:58 1981 WorkS Digest V1 #5 >From DUFFEY@MIT-AI Thu Aug 13 04:55:01 1981

WorkS Digest Thu, 13 Aug 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 5

Today's Topics: Reply - Micro Benchmarks, FYI - IBM's Personal Computer ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 1981 2246-PDT From: Stevan Milunovic <MILUNOVIC SRI-KL AT> Subject: Micro Benchmarks Results

Many thanks to those who responded to the micro benchmark query. I have summarized the benchmarks reported in the April 1/81 issue of EDN, but the article should be read for details concerning the benchmarks. It appears that the 68000 is the hands down winner, unless you need floating point processing and can't wait for the chip (floating point benchmarks were not performed in the report).

I have appended messages (edited to remove redundancy) from those who responded to the query.

Benchmark tests were compiled at CMU in 1976, and coded by each manufacturer.

MICRO | LSI-11/23 | 8086 | 68000 | Z8000 | -------------+------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+ BENCHMARK | Code| Time | Code| Time | Code| Time | Code| Time | -------------+-----+------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+ I/O Interrupt| 20 | 114 | 55 | 126 | 24 | 33 | 18 | 42 | -------------+-----+------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+ I/O w/FIFO | 86 | 1196 | 85 | 348 | 118 | 390 | 106 | 436 | -------------+-----+------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+ Char. Search | 76 | 996 | 70 | 193 | 44 | 244 | 66 | 237 | -------------+-----+------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+ Bit Ops | 70 | 799 | 46 | 122 | 36 | 70 | 44 | 123 | -------------+-----+------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+ Linked List | 138 | 592 | 94 | - | 106 | 153 | 96 | 237 | -------------+-----+------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+ Quicksort | - | - | 347 |1.2E^5 | 266 |3.3E^4 | 386 |1.2E^5 | -------------+-----+------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+ Bit Matrix | 152 | 1517 | 88 | 820 | 74 | 368 | 110 | 646 | -------------+-----+------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+

Clock time: LSI-11/23 = 3.3 MHz 8086 = 10.0 MHz 68000 = 10.0 MHz Z8000 = 6.0 MHz

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From: Frank J. Wancho <FJW MIT-MC AT> Subject: Micro Benchmarks

ComputerWorld has been running a series of benchmark articles over the last six months or more and periodically publish accumulated summaries of the results in each category.

--Frank ----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Nowicki at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: WorkS Digest V1 #4

Forest Baskett has the famous "Baskett Benchmark" that has been run on machines like Dorados, Dolphins, Altos, 10s, 20s, Vaxen, and MC68000 in both C, "hacked" C and Pascal. The results are very informative. I would like to see the results on other microcomputers. By the way, we get almost 40% VAX/780 performance on the 8 MHz 68000 in this test, which is a small, integer only, compute bound puzzle solver.

-- Bill ----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: CAIN at SRI-AI Subject: Micro benchmarks

The April 1, 1981 issue of EDN has a number of benchmarks between the LSI-11/23, the 68000, the Z8000, and the 8086. They are taken from a more complete study done at CMU which I was hoping to find one of these days.

Since these benchmarks omitted floating point tests, I performed a couple informal ones on a 68000 with Doug Beck here at SRI. To do 10000 iterations of a floating point add, subtract, multiply, and divide took 71 seconds (implying 1.75 milliseconds per operation) using Whitesmith's C compiler and 104 seconds using Motorola's PASCAL compiler.

When talking to Motorola about this sluggish performance, they mentioned that the 68000 has a fast floating point PROM in development which has done floating-point multiplications (in software!) in 35 micro seconds. This compares very well with the LSI-11/23's floating point hardware times.

Also C makes all floating point numbers to double precision before doing the implied operation, meaning much of that 71 seconds was devoted in going "float-to-double" and "double-to-float". According to my calculations, the 68000 is capable of that 35 microsecond time easily (roughly 100 to 150 clock states would be required), and since it has the most support (cross compilers on the VAX, etc), I think it is the preferable chip. It is promised that the floating-point support will be built onto the chip mask so that some new instructions will manipulate floating point numbers directly. I am seriously weighing the choice of VAX vs 68000 for a new project (where cost may outweigh the greater power of the VAX).

... Ron ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: 12 Aug 1981 2130-PDT From: Charles B. Weinstock <WEINSTOCK SRI-KL AT> Subject: New IBM Personal Computer

Business Day : IBM Personal Computer By ANDREW POLLACK c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service

NEW YORK - The International Business Machines Corp., the giant of the computer industry, is thinking smaller: Wednesday it introduced a personal desk-top computer for use at home, in schools and in business. Although the announcement had been expected for months, it still sent reverberations through the industry. Besides representing a dramatic change in image for IBM and marking its entry into consumer electronics, the endorsement of personal machines by a company whose name is practically synonymous with computers is expected to stimulate the growth of the business. And IBM could pose the stiffest challenge yet to Apple Computer Inc. and the Tandy Corp.'s Radio Shack division, the current leading vendors. "It's one of the most important announcements we've seen in the industry," said Christopher Morgan, editor in chief of Byte, a personal computer magazine. "People will now know that personal computers are not a fad or a flash in the pan," said Michael McConnell, executive vice president of Computerland, a chain of a retail stores that will market the new IBM products. The price of the machines will range from $1,565, for a simple system that will require users to provide their own television screens and cassette tapes, to more than $6,000 for the most elaborate versions. In addition to Computerland, the line will be sold through several new business-machine stores being started by Sears, Roebuck & Co., by IBM's own three retail stores and directly by IBM to large corporations. By most accounts of analysts and others connected with the personal computer business, IBM's machine is impressive technologically, not because of any single breakthrough, but because of a combination of good features and sound engineering. The new model uses a microprocessor capable of handling 16 bits of information at a time, which will permit the machine to handle data more quickly and perform more complex tasks than most other personal computers, which have 8-bit microprocessors. The machine, depending on the model, can store 16,000 to more that 260,000 characters in its memory. But analysts disagreed on whether the price would be low enough to knock Apple or Tandy out of the ring. In Fort Worth, Garland P. Asher, chief of financial planning for Tandy, said he was relieved in two ways. "I'm relieved that whatever they were going to do, they finally did it," he said. "I'm certainly relieved at the pricing. They haven't introduced anything that's going to rewrite the ground rules." Comparing prices is difficult, however, because the machines come in different configurations and are not directly comparable. McConnell, of Computerland, which sells both Apple machines and the IBM home computer, said that in some typical configurations the IBM machine was several hundred dollars more expensive than the Apple II, Apple's popular brand. Yet the IBM device is slightly less expensive than a typical configuration of the newer, more powerful Apple III. Other factors such as the availability of programs for the computer and marketing are equally important, analysts said. IBM will have fewer retail outlets and fewer programs initially than Apple and Radio Shack. Yet, Aaron Goldberg, an analyst with the International Data Corp., a Framingham, Mass., consulting firm, said IBM's direct sales staff could be a potent force in selling to leading industrial companies, who might buy dozens of desk-top computers at a time. Chances are, there will be room for all the companies, many analysts believe. The personal computer market is growing explosively, although accurate figures are hard to get because there is no clear distinction between home computers, personal computers for other users and desk-top computers designed for business use. International Data estimates that 327,000 desk-top computers, ranging in price from several hundred dollars to $20,000, were sold in the United States in 1980, and projects that this total will increase to 1.3 million by 1985. In dollar volume, the market is expected to grow from $2.4 billion last year to $9 billion in1985. According to estimates by International Data and others, there are approximately a million personal computers in use, with the largest application being for business and professional uses. The home and education markets are still small, but are expected to explode. When the new computer becomes available in October, the program offerings will include Visicalc, a popular business forecasting program; three business and accounting packages by Peachtree Software; Easywriter, a word-processing package, and Microsoft Adventure, a fantasy game. The software, however, will sell in some cases for about twice the price of the equivalent programs sold for use on other machines. IBM is also allowing anyone else who wants to do so to write programs for the IBM machine, which the company would evaluate. If the programs were accepted for marketing, the writer would be paid a royalty on sales of the program. A veritable cottage industry of computer buffs has sprung up to write programs for other personal computers, and the abundance of such home-grown programs is largely responsible for the market strength of the Apple and Tandy computers. IBM also said it would make its computers nearly compatible with some other home computers, so programs written for those machines could be transferred to the IBM model.

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