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Whetstone (Benchmark) - Wikipedia

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Villager Pak
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Whetstone

(benchmark)

The Whetstone benchmark is a synthetic


benchmark for evaluating the performance
of computers.[1] It was first written in Algol
60 in 1972 at the Technical Support Unit of
the Department of Trade and Industry
(later part of the Central Computer and
Telecommunications Agency) in the
United Kingdom. It was derived from
statistics on program behaviour gathered
on the KDF9 computer at NPL National
Physical Laboratory, using a modified
version of its Whetstone ALGOL 60
compiler.[2] The workload on the machine
was represented as a set of frequencies of
execution of the 124 instructions of the
Whetstone Code. The Whetstone Compiler
was built at the Atomic Power Division of
the English Electric Company in
Whetstone, Leicestershire, England,[3]
hence its name. Dr. B.A. Wichman at NPL
produced a set of 42 simple ALGOL 60
statements, which in a suitable
combination matched the execution
statistics.
To make a more practical benchmark
Harold Curnow of TSU wrote a program
incorporating the 42 statements. This
program worked in its ALGOL 60 version,
but when translated into FORTRAN it was
not executed correctly by the IBM
optimizing compiler. Calculations whose
results were not output were omitted. He
then produced a set of program fragments
which were more like real code and which
collectively matched the original 124
Whetstone instructions. Timing this
program gave a measure of the machine’s
speed in thousands of Whetstone
instructions per second (kWIPS). The
Fortran version became the first general
purpose benchmark that set industry
standards of computer system
performance. Further development was
carried out by Roy Longbottom, also of
TSU/CCTA, who became the official design
authority. The Algol 60 program ran under
the Whetstone compiler in July 2010, for
the first time since the last KDF9 was shut
down in 1980, but now executed by a KDF9
emulator.[4] Following increased computer
speeds, performance measurement was
changed to Millions of Whetstone
Instructions Per Second (MWIPS).

Source code and pre-compiled versions for


PCs in C/C++, Basic, Visual Basic, Fortran
and Java are available.[5][6]

The Whetstone benchmark primarily


measures the floating-point arithmetic
performance. A similar benchmark for
integer and string operations is the
Dhrystone.

See also
Dhrystone
FLOPS
Gibson Mix
LINPACK benchmarks
Million instructions per second (MIPS)
References
1. Curnow, H J; Wichmann, B A (1976). "A
synthetic benchmark" (http://www.roylongb
ottom.org.uk/whetstone.pdf) (PDF).
Computer Journal. 19 (1): 43–49.
doi:10.1093/comjnl/19.1.43 (https://doi.or
g/10.1093%2Fcomjnl%2F19.1.43) .
2. Brian A. Wichmann (1973). Algol 60
Compilation and Assessment (https://www.
researchgate.net/publication/265487549_A
LGOL_60_Compilation_and_Assessment) .
Academic Press. ISBN 0127482504.
3. Brian Randell; Lawford John Russell (1964).
Algol 60 Implementation (http://www.softw
arepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/book/
Randell_ALGOL_60_Implementation_1964.p
df) (PDF). Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-
578150-4.
4. "The English Electric KDF9 Computer" (htt
p://www.findlayw.plus.com/KDF9/) .
Retrieved 28 April 2020.
5. Roy Longbottom (February 2017).
"Whetstone Benchmark Detailed Results On
PCs" (http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/wh
etstone%20results.htm) . Retrieved 28 April
2020.
6. Roy Longbottom (October 2014).
"Whetstone Benchmark History and
Results" (http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/
whetstone.htm) . Retrieved 28 April 2020.
External links
Benchmark Programs and Reports (http
s://www.netlib.org/benchmark/) (see
also Netlib)
Whetstone Algol Revisited, or
Confessions of a compiler writer PDF
file (http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/bria
n.randell/Papers-Articles/427.pdf) (B.
Randell, 1964)

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This page was last edited on 27 October 2023, at
23:07. •
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