16 Feb
2025
16 Feb
'25
9:19 p.m.
On Mon, 2025-02-17 at 03:39 +0000, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
CDC 6000-series turned in better performance
benchmarks on COBOL tha
did the high-end IBM S/370 iron
In the mid 1970s at JPL, we were using Uniac 1108 for scientific
computing and IBM 370 for administrative computing. My group go a task
to develop some benchmarks to choose the next big computers. We wrote
COBOL and FORTRAN benchmarks. Univac was faster on the COBOL
benchmarks, and IBM was faster on the FORTRAN benchmarks. But we stuck
with Univac for scientific computing and IBM for administrative
computing. What ultimately carried the day was software compatibility.
The administrative COBOL software used proprietary IBM extensions.
Univac double precision is 18 digits, while 370 double precision is 14
digits.