Peter_Lawrence_Jackson@MTSG.UBC.CA (04/11/89)
A few months ago, I wrote this news group requesting information on
Fortran compilers for the ST. I received a half dozen or so replies --
thanks! Here I'll summarize the responses and give the price information
I got by writing directly to the companies.
There are three Fortran compilers available for the ST:
1) AC/Fortran Absoft Corporation
Scientific/Engineering Software
2781 Bond St.
Auburn Hills, Michigan 48057
(313) 853-0050 Telex 235608 Fax (313) 853-0108
Price: $371.25 for a University with a University P.O. I think that
this price is in $CDN - it would be $299.00 US. I don't know what the non-
university price is.
2) Pro Fortran for GEM Prospero Software
100 Commercial Street, Suite 306
Portland, Maine 04101
(207) 874-0382 Fax (207) 874-0942
Price: $129.00 US educational, includes students who may not be able
to get a university P.O. The regular price is $199.00 US.
3) Pecan Fortran 77 Pecan Software Systems, Inc.
1410 39th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11218
(718) 851-3100
Price: $249.95 in $US I presume.
Of the three, I heard from people who used and were very pleased with
1) & 2). The Pecan product uses a "Power System" programming environment.
The compiler is stack oriented, creating an intermediate language (p code).
AC/Fortran seems to be the faster and more efficient of 1) and 2). It
can link dynamically at runtime, thus enabling fast compile times and
small executable size -- except that the runtime library must also be
available so that the code is not truly "stand alone". It is a full
ANSI Fortran 77 implementation and has dynamic linking and overlay
capability to accomodate program sizes larger than the available RAM.
It comes with a screen oriented symbolic debugger. It can be used for
GEM programming as well (not that you'd want to do this in Fortran...).
Pro Fortran is designed specifically for the programming in GEM. It is a
full ANSI Fortran 77 implementation and includes a symbolic debugger,
editor, cross reference facility and compiler centred around a "Programmers
Workbench". They sent me a demo disk and I was quite impressed. Pro Fortran
also comes with libraries that support the 68881 co-processor. One
correspondent from Germany stated that there are two companies manufacturing
these each in two models: ST and Mega. They cost around $200 - $300 ( I'm
not sure if this includes the chip -- perhaps someone who knows more
could elaborate on this), and improve performance by 300 to 900 % depending
on the type of operation and code.
One correspondent gave a performance comparison between AC and Pro Fortran
(without co-processor I presume) from an article in the French magazine
"ST-Mag". The numbers I give below are the ratio of times: Pro / AC
add integer 1.5
add real*4 1.51
add real*8 1.58
multiply integ. 1.0
" " real*4 2.11
" " " *8 2.44
exponent real*4 1.14
" " " *8 1.09
sin real*4 1.12
" " *8 1.17
106 loops 1.33
compilation 6.36 (of a particular code)
run time 1.33 " "
code size 1.42
In summary then, AC Fortran seems faster and more efficient. However
it is much more expensive and doesn't seem to support the 68881. For about
the same price as AC it would be possible to get Pro and a 68881 making
Pro the better performer. I have decided to get the Pro Fortran, and think
about a co-processor later.
Thanks to all those who responded!
Peter: Internet usermeso@mtsg.ubc.ca
Bitnet usermeso$ubcmtsg.bitnet