Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!ames!amdahl!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Benchmark names: origins
Message-ID: <970@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 14 May 88 07:54:04 GMT
References: <30528@linus.UUCP> <1087@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 14

In article <1087@mcgill-vision.UUCP>, mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) writes:
> But where did the Whetstone name come from, or rather, how did it get
> attached to a benchmark?

There were two Algol 60 compilers for the ICL 1900 series,
	the Kidsgrove compiler, and		["debugging" system]
	the Whetstone compiler.			["delivery" system]
To the best of my knowledge these were the names of the places in England
where the two development teams worked.  {Making distribution=na was
definitely the wrong move for this question...}
Somebody (I think at NPL) wrote a benchmark and I assume they took the
performance of the Whetstone system as a unit for the Algol version.

The compilers were written up; you might look in the index of CJ or SP&E.