Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!a.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies
From: gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Benchmarking C Compilers (was Re: L
Message-ID: <76000275@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 22 Jul 88 02:41:00 GMT
References: <3133@Portia.Stanford.EDU>
Lines: 36
Nf-ID: #R:Portia.Stanford.EDU:3133:p.cs.uiuc.edu:76000275:000:1800
Nf-From: p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Jul 21 21:41:00 1988


I would be very interested in seeing how fast Apple's MPW C runs on a
Mac II under Multifinder.  If some kind soul on the net would run this
benchmark, I could bathe him/her in glowing *praise*.  There's another
16.67Mhz 68020 computer that attains 4000+ dhrystones -- It's made by
Harris.

I really doubt that Green Hills marketing hype (6900+ Dhrystone for C
under A/UX).  Perhaps the compiler is tracking down & removing dead
code!  That isn't fair -- the entire benchmark is supposed to be "live
code".  Also, is it the new VERSION 2.n of the Dhrystone benchmark?
It was a lot easier to find dead code in the old version 1.0 benchmark.

Model		Proc	Clock	O/S	Compiler/Options	noReg	Reg
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harris MCX-3/40 68020	16.67	HS/UX	HS/UX C v3.0B 		4178	4215
Sun 3/260	68020	25.0	SunOS4.5 gnucc 1.17		6993	7012
Sun 3/160	68020	16.67	SunOS4.5 gnucc 1.17		3681	3681

I agree that a fast turnaround-compiler shouldn't produce wonderful
code, but I was bemoaning the lack of ANY efficient compilers for the Mac
II.  LSC claims to outperform some other compilers (Aztec, Turbo), so
I used it for comparison.

As far as adding LSC switches (speaking off-the-cuff): register
allocation is perhaps something that can be done well & quickly on a
per-basic-block basis.  Peephole optimization might be hard, since
LSC probably emits binary opcodes, not assembly code.  Too bad.
Peephole optimizers are sometimes both trivial & effective.  As Rich
might say -- I want to have my cake & eat it too!

Maybe we should move this discussion to comp.sys.mac.programmer.

Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801      
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP: {uunet,ihnp4,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies