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From: CSvax:Pucc-H:ags@pur-ee.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: RE: P-system slow
Message-ID: <299@pucc-h>
Date: Fri, 23-Sep-83 22:02:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.299
Posted: Fri Sep 23 22:02:39 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Sep-83 22:03:44 EDT
References: <2348@ncsu.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 27

So the P-system is "orders of magnitude" slow because it can only do 10K
cycles of i=i+1 per second?

As I recall, this discussion started when someone claimed that the Atari
had a better operating system than the Apple, and quoted statements in
Atari BASIC and Applesoft BASIC to prove it.  I think a microcomputer
operating system need not be considered bad merely because it does
only 10K loop iterations per second.

For the record, I never said that P-code wasn't slow.  It is, however,
considerably faster than BASIC, besides being MUCH easier to work with.
What I said was that since Apple Pascal has a resident assembler, the 
system is fast enough for applications for which the 6502 is fast enough.
I stand by that statement.  I am typing this article on an Apple which
is running my communications program, which I wrote in Pascal and
assembly language.  P-code is not nearly fast enough to keep up at 1200
baud, but the program manages by using interrupts and by having the
critical routines run at machine speed.  I do not consider this to be
a particularly large coding effort at the assembly language level.  I
am still adding things to the package, but most of what I am doing now
is in Pascal, since it does not need to be particularly fast.  I don't
think this program is atypical. Size doesn't worry me, either, since
the system supports segmentation and therefore does not require that
the entire program fit in 64K (or even 128K). 

				Dave Seaman
				Pucc-H:ags