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From: rmb@omepd.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Where did the name "Dhrystone" come from?
Message-ID: <396@omepd>
Date: Thu, 12-Feb-87 20:50:07 EST
Article-I.D.: omepd.396
Posted: Thu Feb 12 20:50:07 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Feb-87 19:41:44 EST
References: <784@cullvax.UUCP> <299@ames.UUCP>
Sender: news@omepd
Reply-To: rmb@intelob.UUCP (Bob Bentley)
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro
Lines: 31
Keywords: Whetstones

In article <299@ames.UUCP> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
>
>Dhrystone is simply a weak pun on Whetstone just as
>Unix is a weak pun on Multics. Where did Whetstone come from?
>Probably from the stone used to sharpen knives.  Ask Wichmann.
>

Whetstone is a place in Leicestershire, England.  In the 60's it was the
location of a development facility of English Electric Co. (a precursor of the
present ICL), who had developed a machine called the KDF9.  There were two
different Algol-60 compilers for the KDF9 - a "production" compiler, developed
at the Kidsgrove facility near Manchester (the "K" in KDF9), and a development
compiler developed at Whetstone.  Not surprisingly, they were known as the
Kidsgrove and Whetstone Algol compilers.

The Whetstone compiler actually produced code for a virtual target machine,
which was then interpreted.  This made for easier debugging, and also made it
possible to collect dynamic frequency statistics on instructions, data types,
etc.  Brian Wichmann did just this, and produced a synthetic benchmark which
approximated the characteristics of the observed programs - hence, the
"Whetstone" benchmark.  In was later converted from Algol-60 to Fortran, and
the rest is history.

Bob Bentley
          
Intel Corp. - Hillsboro, Oregon
.. ihnp4!verdix!inteloa!rmb

"personally my ambition is to get my time as a cockroach shortened for good
behaviour and be promoted to a revenue officer it is not much of a step up but
i am humble"