MCL is speedy

[Howard@quercus.demon.co.uk]

I have recently compiled the results of a series of tests of near-identical
Common Lisp programs running on a range of different hardware and software.
 The league table resulting is:

Posn   Hardware & Common Lisp      relative speed

1      Sun 10/30 & Franz Allegro   1.0 (fastest)
2      Sun 4/470 & Franz Allegro   2.1
3      Sun IPC & Franz Allegro     2.5
4      Macintosh Q950 & MCL        3.1
5      Macintosh IIci+Rocket & MCL 3.1
6      Sun 10/30 & Lucid           3.6
7      Sun 10/20 & Lucid           4.0
8      TI Explorer II              4.4
9      Macintosh IIfx & MCL        6.6
10     Macintosh IIci & MCL        9.3
11     Sun IPC & Lucid            10.4
12     SGI Indigo R3000 & AKCL   >40.0 (estimated)

(above table cross-posted from GP mail list)

Please note that the application being run was very purposeful, and heavy
in its CPU demands (it was running a genetic programming example, which
consists of a large number of evaluations of Lisp S-expressions and a bit
of floating point maths too).

Depending on the pricing that you can get, a Mac Quadra 950 with MCL 2.0
appears to be excellent value (top of the 'bang per buck' league) and said
Quadra with 4 x Radius Rocket 33 boards would appear to be a very potent
desktop Lisp platform if you can parallelize your code.

Howard.
Howard Oakley,                      * Howard@quercus.demon.co.uk
EHN & DIJ Oakley, Brooklands Lodge, * AppleLink UK0392
Park View Close, Wroxall, Ventnor,  * CompuServe 70734,120
Isle of Wight UK PO38 3EQ           * Tel +44 983 853605, fax 853253