IBM has joined the Systems Performance Evaluation Co-operative, founded in November of last year (CI No 1,056), which aims to establish a series of benchmarks for realistically measuring the performance of advanced computer systems, in particular workstations built upon reduced instruction set architecture. IBM brings SPEC’s membership up to 10, the others are Apollo Computer and Hewlett Packard Co, MIPS Computer Systems, Sun Microsystems, Data General, DEC, Motorola, Multiflow Computer and Stellar Computer. At the same time the Co-operative unveiled the first results of its venture, with Release 1.0 of the SPEC Benchmark Suite, based on Unix, and containing around 20 benchmarks, which will be issued in the Autumn. They measure computer performance in the engineering and scientific fields using a host of programs from all application areas. The need for fresh performance evaluation standards has arisen because of the inability of traditional benchmarks such as Dhrystones and Whetstones reliably to gauge the performance of systems such as workstations and servers which now take advantage of mainframe and supercomputer design concepts. Putting it a touch more succinctly, John Masey of MIPS, also a director of the Co operative’s committee responsible for technical development of the suite, said its like trying to measure the speed of a bullet with a stopwatch. The Evaluation Co-op says it is also adopting a new open membership policy – which basically means that any company subscribing to the goals of th Co-op can join, the ultimate being to answer the question, how fast?
