Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!texbell!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Benchmarking interactive software (Re: It looks like he's at it again!) Message-ID: Date: 26 Jul 90 13:28:18 GMT References: <1990Jul12.012730.4248@Stardent.COM> <64044@sgi.sgi.com> <13392@cbmvax.commodore.com> <_YV4Y9A@ggpc2.ferranti.com> <784@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 8 At the speed computers run, the user-interface part of the code for WP could probably be written mostly in Dartmouth Basic (that parsed expressions by repeatedly scanning forwards and backwards for parentheses) and *still* be fast enough that nobody would notice it. Sure, screen updates and buffer handling should probably have a large assembly content on a machine like an 8088, but I suspect that much of the delay would turn out to be in block moves (and BitBlt on a bitmapped display)... which are likely to be in assembly in any case. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U`