Creative Computing Benchmark: Difference between revisions

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The benchmark had several problems that made it less useful for general purposes. For instance, the system did not test any string manipulation, whose performance varied widely across platforms. It also did not take advantage of any "speedups" available on different platforms, like the possible use of integer variables for loop indexes or turning off video access on machines with shared main memory.{{efn|Most 8-bit machines of the era had a single bank of RAM that was shared between the CPU and display driver, which led to [[bus contention]] issues that slowed performance as much as 30%. Turning off the display was a common way to improve compute-bound programs like this benchmark.{{sfn|Wilkinson|1985|p=140}}}} These limitations were widely debated at the time.{{sfn|Wilkinson|1985|p=139}} The November 1983 article stipulated using an "accurate stopwatch" to time the program execution on machines lacking a real-time clock: When applied to the faster machines, this would yield test results highly dependent on the reaction time of the individual operating the stopwatch.

Its last appearance is in the May 1984 issue, which included values for 183 machines. This issue included a note that the many criticisms of the system had been taken to heart and a new benchmark program was under design.<ref>{{Cite magazine |magazine=Creative Computing |date=May 1984 |page=6 |first=David |last=Ahl |title=Creative Computing Benchmark |url=https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1984-05/page/n9}}</ref> However, such a program never appeared in the magazine. In the September 1985 issue, whichDavid increasinglyAhl focusedresponded onto a Letter to the businessEditor marketabout thatthe wasnew comingbenchmark toprogram with "Several analysts spent many hours working out three new benchmark tests ... none gave different or better results" <ref>{{Cite magazine |magazine=Creative Computing |date=September dominate1985 [[personal|page=6 computer]]s|first=David in|last=Ahl that|title=Input/Output era|url=https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1985-09/page/n7}}</ref>.

The benchmark continued to be used as a general-purpose tool after this date,<ref> {{Cite magazine |magazine=Creative Computing |date=May 1985 |first=Glenn |last=Hart |pages=46, 48, 51-52 |title=Microsoft BASIC 2.0 for the Mac |url=https://archive.org/stream/creativecomputing-1985-05/Creative_Computing_v11_n05_1985_May#page/n55}}</ref> but as the importance of BASIC dwindled it became less common.