Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!bloom-beacon!gatech!mcnc!ecsvax!urjlew
From: urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP (Rostyk Lewyckyj)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: FORTRAN Horror
Message-ID: <4816@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: 26 Mar 88 05:03:36 GMT
References: <24861@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <1135@pembina.UUCP> <2596@pdn.UUCP> <551@tuck.nott-cs.UUCP>
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 36
Follow-up: comp.lang.fortran


Since a mail reply to Mr. Walker in Great Britain is unlikely
to be accepted by the gateway keepers, I am posting my comments.
  
In article <551@tuck.nott-cs.UUCP>, anw@nott-cs.UUCP writes:
> 
> 	Many years ago, I ran the Whetstone benchmark through a collection
> of compilers on the University mainframe, then an ICL 1906A.  The basic
> results were (in kilo-Whetstones per second):
> 
> 	Pascal		661	[not my figure, no further info]
> 	Algol 68	628	[Malvern compiler, 1 pass, little optimisation]
> 	Fortran		585	[ICL optimising compiler, ? no checks]
> 	Algol 60	379	[ICL compiler]
> 	Algol 68	355	[as above, but with full checking]
> 	Fortran		282	[ICL non-optimising compiler]
> 
> --
> Andy Walker, Maths Dept, Nott'm Univ.
> anw@maths.nott.ac.uk
  
Note that the Fortran compiler figure is the best of the figures
for ICL compilers. Also did the machine you ran on have hardware
floating point? My experience with Fortran on an ICL 1904 without
floating point was that it was abysmal, while Cobol seemed to run
just fine. I was surprised that an assignment A=B, or I=J was not
simply load rhs followed by a store, but required some funny
intervening manipulations. All this was back in 1974 so I can't
dig out the details or tell you the version level of the compiler
or operating system (George III).
Anyway this should be being discussed in comp.lang.fortran.

-----------------------------------------------
  Reply-To:  Rostyslaw Jarema Lewyckyj
             urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP ,  urjlew@tucc.bitnet
       or    urjlew@tucc.tucc.edu    (ARPA,SURA,NSF etc. internet)
       tel.  (919)-962-9107