On Sat, 2 Jan 1999, Roger Merchberger wrote:
> >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.
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.
> 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_at_siconic.com
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Received on Sat Jan 02 1999 - 01:03:58 GMT