Altair benchmark

From: Richard A. Cini, Jr. <rcini_at_optonline.net>
Date: Sat Sep 1 19:34:12 2001

Hi:

        I came across a very simple benchmark program that I'd like to use in
comparing the speed of a real Altair to that of the Altair32 emulator:

    org 0
start:
    ei
    lxi b,0 ; inner loop = 65536 times
    mvi d,50 ; outer loop = 50 times
loop:
    push b ; this is just to increase the instruction count
    push d
    push h
    push psw
    pop psw
    pop h
    pop d
    pop b
    dcx b
    mov a,b
    ora c ; done with inner loop?
    jnz loop ; if not, keep going

    dcr d ; do this 50 times
    jnz loop

    hlt ; done with speed test

    end start


        I would appreciate it if someone with an Altair could put this in and time,
in seconds, how long it takes to perform this test.

        I already know that the Altair32 is painfully slow, primarily because of
the graphics routines used to draw the front panel LEDs. Disabling LED
updating improves the speed greatly. Doing this, unfortunately, results in
you have a Turnkey system...

        Thanks to all.

Rich

Rich Cini
Collector of classic computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project
Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
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Received on Sat Sep 01 2001 - 19:34:12 BST