bench64: a new BASIC benchmark index for 8-bit computers

Nobody asked for this. Nobody needs this. But here we are …

Inspired by J. G. Harston’s clever but domain-specific ClockSp benchmark, I set out to write a BASIC benchmark suite that was:

1. more portable;
2. based on a benchmark system that more people might own;
3. and a bunch of other less important ideas.

Since I already had a Commodore 64, and seemingly several million other people did too, it seemed like a fair choice to use as the reference system. But the details, so many details …

(I mean: who knew that Commodore PET BASIC could run faster or slower depending on how your numbered your lines? Not me — until today, that is.)

While the benchmark doesn’t scale well for BASIC running on modern computers — the comparisons between a simple 8-bit processor at a few MHz and a multi-core wildly complex modern CPU at many GHz just aren’t applicable — it turns out I may have one of the fastest 8-bit BASIC computers around in the matchbox-sized shape of the MinZ v1.1 (36.864 Z180, CP/M 2.2, BBC BASIC [Z80] v3):

BASIC BENCH INDEX
>I GOOD. NTSC C64=100

1/8 - FOR:
 3.2 S; 12778 /S; I= 1895 
2/8 - GOTO:
 6.1 S; 4324.5 /S; I= 978 
3/8 - GOSUB:
 3.1 S; 6789 /S; I= 1935 
4/8 - IF:
 2.9 S; 4966.9 /S; I= 2046 
5/8 - FN:
 3.5 S; 1030.6 /S; I= 1698 
6/8 - MATHS:
 1.5 S; 255.3 /S; I= 4000 
7/8 - STRING:
 2.6 S; 1871.6 /S; I= 2279 
8/8 - ARRAY:
 3.1 S; 540.3 /S; I= 1935 

OVERALL INDEX= 1839 

That’s more than 9× the speed of a BBC Micro Model B.

Github link: bench64 – a new BASIC benchmark index for 8-bit computers.

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