1 Jan
1999
1 Jan
'99
5:03 p.m.
On Sat, 2 Jan 1999, Roger Merchberger wrote:
All that means is that the BASIC interpreters on the PC sucked. If you
take some simple benchmark program and write a version for each processor,
the 286 will beat the pants off the 6809. Any native machine code program
on the 286 will beat out the same native machine code program on the 6809.
Comparing it to
a 286/10mhz, sorry, no way.
I did it. Admittedly, it wasn't *purely* apples to apples comparison, but I
took totally portable M$Basic programs doing integer & real math, and
integer, real & string sorting, and ran them in RS-DOS on a CoCo2 and in
Basic & BasicA on a True-Blue Bummer/AT '286-10. At .89 Mhz, the 6809 was
roughly .7x in everything except integer-related items - remember, RS-DOS
doesn't have integers... everything's a five-byte real. How, tho. compiled C to compiled C? Sure. But how
about optimized assembly
vs. optimized assembly? IIRC, most (if not all) instructions execute in
fewer clock cycles on the 6809. But also, the addressing capabilities of
the 6809 far outweigh anything 86ish - I've tried learning x86 assembly - I
ran screaming into the night... took my wife a week to find me! Any assy.
job I've ever seen can be done in a *lot* fewer instructions on a 6809 than
an x86.
Sure, but I think if you actually DID a comparison between the two in
machine code you'd definitely find the 286/10 to be faster. Nothing
against the 6809, it sounds like a great little chip. But we must face
facts here.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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