The Creative Computing Benchmark, also called Ahl's Simple Benchmark, is a
computer benchmark
In computing, a benchmark is the act of running a computer program, a set of programs, or other operations, in order to assess the relative performance of an object, normally by running a number of standard tests and trials against it.
The term ...
that was used to compare the performance of the
BASIC
Basic or BASIC may refer to:
Science and technology
* BASIC, a computer programming language
* Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base
* Basic access authentication, in HTTP
Entertainment
* Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film
...
programming language on various machines. It was first introduced in the November 1983 issue of ''
Creative Computing
''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format t ...
'' magazine with the measures from a number of
8-bit computers that were popular at the time. Over a period of a few months, the list was greatly expanded to include practically every contemporary machine, topped by the
Cray-1
The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured and marketed by Cray Research. Announced in 1975, the first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976. Eventually, eighty Cray-1s were sold, making it one of the ...
supercomputer, which ran it in 0.01 seconds.
The Creative Computing Benchmark was one of three common benchmarks of the era. Its primary competition in the early 1980s in the United States was the
Byte Sieve, of September 1981, while the earlier
Rugg/Feldman benchmarks of June 1977 were not as well known in the United States, but were widely used in the United Kingdom.
History
The benchmark first appeared in the November 1983 issue of ''Creative Computing'' under the title "Benchmark Comparison Test". In the article, author
David H. Ahl was careful to state that it tested only a few aspects of the BASIC language, mostly its looping performance. He stated:
The initial results were provided for common machines of the era, including the
Apple II
Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...
, Commodore 64 and the recently released IBM Personal Computer. Most of these machines ran some variation of the stock Microsoft BASIC and thus provided similar times on the order of two minutes, while the
16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two ...
PC was near the top of the list at only 24 seconds. the fastest machine in this initial suite was the
Olivetti M20
The Olivetti M20 is a Zilog Z8000 based computer designed and released by Olivetti in 1982. Although it offered good Computer performance, performance, it suffered from a lack of software due to its use of the Z8000 processor and custom operating ...
at 13 seconds, and the slowest was
Atari BASIC
Atari BASIC is an interpreter for the BASIC programming language that shipped with Atari 8-bit computers. Unlike most American BASICs of the home computer era, Atari BASIC is not a derivative of Microsoft BASIC and differs in significant way ...
on the
Atari 8-bit computers
The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of home computers introduced by Atari, Inc., in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The architecture is designed around the 8-bit MOS Technology 650 ...
at 6 minutes 58 seconds.
In the months following its publication, the magazine was inundated with results for other platforms. It became a regular feature for a time, placed prominently near the front of the magazine with an ever-growing list of results. By March the fastest machine on the list was the Cray-1 at 0.01 seconds, and the slowest was the
TI SR-50 programmable calculator
Programmable calculators are calculators that can automatically carry out a sequence of operations under the control of a stored computer programming, program. Most are Turing complete, and, as such, are theoretically general-purpose computers. ...
at 12.7 days.
The benchmark had several problems that made it less useful for general purposes. For instance, the system did not test any string manipulation, whose performance varied widely across platforms. It also did not take advantage of any "speedups" available on different platforms, like the possible use of integer variables for loop indexes or turning off video access on machines with shared main memory. These limitations were widely debated at the time. The November 1983 article stipulated using an "accurate stopwatch" to time the program execution on machines lacking a real-time clock: When applied to the faster machines, this would yield test results highly dependent on the reaction time of the individual operating the stopwatch.
Its last appearance is in the May 1984 issue, which included values for 183 machines. This issue included a note that the many criticisms of the system had been taken to heart and a new benchmark program was under design. However, such a program never appeared in the magazine. In the September 1985 issue, David Ahl responded to a Letter to the Editor about the new benchmark program with "Several analysts spent many hours working out three new benchmark tests ... none gave different or better results".
The benchmark continued to be used as a general-purpose tool after this date,
but as the importance of BASIC dwindled it became less common.
Code
This is the original version from the November 1983 edition:
The following is from later versions of the benchmark code, which reduced the number of compound statements on a line:
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
* {{Cite magazine , magazine=Compute! , date=February 1985 , pages=139–142 , title=INSIGHT: Atari , first=Bill , last=Wilkinson , url=https://archive.org/stream/1985-02-compute-magazine/Compute_Issue_057_1985_Feb#page/n139/
Benchmarks (computing)
History of computing
BASIC programming language