Re: Apple II benchmarks

[pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <393570D9.D9AB91B9@inetnebr.com>,
Roy and/or Janet Miller  <millers@inetnebr.com> wrote:
 
> Forrest wrote:
> 
>>> Sieve test in BASIC
>>>    A2 - 245 secs  PC- 191 secs
>>
>> IIRC, Sieve of Eratosthenes is an integer benchmark.  Applesoft does all
>> calculations in FP format.  Wonder if the PC BASIC did the same...
> 
> BASICA is an FP BASIC, so I would assume (not always safe to do) that Byte
> would write the program to get the best possible speed.
 
BASICA and GWBASIC were derived from MBASIC for CP/M.  All three of
them did implement both floating-point and integer arithmetic.  Which
means if all operators involved in an arithmetic operations were
integers, then the operation was done in integer arithmetic.  Also:
on these interpreters, floating-point arithmetic came in two flavors:
single precision (4-byte) and double precision (8-byte): naturally
the latter was considerably slower (no, neither BASICA nor GWBASIC
does use the 8087 if one is installed).
 
Applesoft did *all* its arithmetic in floating point, and there was
only one floating-point precision available: 5-byte.
 

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