ravi@mcnc.UUCP (03/22/87)
[] I was sent some neat info on Fortran compilers for the ST, which Moshe suggested I post; I think it'll be useful to those (like me) who are interested in Fortran compilers for the ST but had no real info. Existing fortran users probably know this, but I think it's worth posting for the sake of Those Not in the Know.. What follows is a condensed (!) form of messages sent to me by Wes Cobb at Brandeis. The comments on Absoft and Prospero Fortrans are by Wes. The benchmarks were run by him and Ulrich Lang of the Univ. of Stuttgart. Thanks guys! -ravi ps: My comments in [] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To whet your apetite (heh heh), an intro: " we are all currently using absoft fortrn v2.2 since it seems to be almost 100% source compatible with vax fortran and it also kicks the living daylights out of everything else we've seen for the st. absofts fortran whetstone: 65,000 prospero fortran whetsone: 56,000 megamax whetstone : 14,000 lattice whetstone : 7,000 atari basic whetstone : 800 " (Hit n now to skip the rest) ABSOFT: ------ " compiler offers complete support for all of the atari capabilities: ports, mouse, joystick, graphics, printer, etc. * it is VERY small - the largest `pass` of the compiler is only 46 K. and the entire language PLUS libraries will EASILY fit on one single sided floppy ( it takes 221 K ). * it allows one to compile fortran programs to as68 source code for easy interfacing with c programs. * it has a full-screen debugger. * it allows BOTH static and dynamic linking. the dynamic linked code is *tiny* and ( when run from ramdisk ) is almost as fast as the static linked code. * it works with all ramdisk programs that i know of. * the Absoft compiler supports F77 and F66 and also has many extensions which are part of the upcoming F8x standard. most vax-fortran code compiles AS IS under the F77 dialect. the F8x extensions include: dowhile, case-switch, argv-argc, facilities for pointer manipulations, and various string handling extensions. there are a couple of things i dont like about the compiler - 1. the librarian provided is not terribly smart. it doesnt look backwards for references so you sometimes have to link to a library 2 or 3 times if you have been silly about loading the modules into it. 2. it is not compatible with [Breckmeyer's Multitasking] shell v1.0 ( i dont know about v1.1 ) [compiler seems to work but crashes on exiting] the people .. at absoft say they already have the driver code for use with the 68881 - they are just waiting for someone to produce an ST floating point board. [Well, out there? You guys been bad or something, or did Santa get held up last year? How come no-one's made one of these yet? I guess there isn't any place to put it though.. Is there any hope for one? Anyone know of someone making one?] PROSPERO: ---------- Prospero is a very literal implementation of the ANSI F77 standard with NONE of the usual extensions one finds on VAXae and mainframes. it is so minimal that it doesnt even have do-enddo - tho with your ratfor preprocessor this may not be a relevant worry... it does NOT allow dynamic linking. it does NOT have LOC or BIT manipulation functions. it only allows 6 chars in names. it only allows UPPER case. [doesn't sound that hot.. not worth bothering about?] *********************************************************************** benchmark data [sources are available]: vax 8600 atari st atari st vax fortran absoft fortran prospero F77 optimized < dynamic > < static > benchmark seconds seconds seconds --------- --------- --------- --------- time1 2.09 210.0 320 time2a 3.78 405.0 552 time2b 4.02 409.4 560 time3 2.16 86.4 164 time4 0.36 16.5 12 time5 5.43 112.3 88 time6 5.19 73.3 46 whetstone "4160000" "65000" ++ "56250" ( for I = 99 ) trig_test 4.69 303.3 290 math_test 2.18 206.6 224 loop_test 3.56 284.9 472 flops 1060000 10380 - ( no answer yet ) ++ On the Whetstone benchmark Absoft is somewhat faster in F66 ( 65000 ) than it is in F77 ( 57500 ). [ Whew. ]