Further speed comparisons of AKCL and Lucid

[boyer@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Bob Boyer)]

MAXIMA is Bill Schelter's Common Lisp version of DOE Macsyma.  It is
available only by license from the Argonne NESC.  See below for an
address.



			 MAXIMA Problem Suite
			   by Bill Schelter

We have collected a number of test problems for MAXIMA, and include
below some information on timings in various lisps.  The files we used
are in the maxima/doc directory of my standard distribution of MAXIMA.
These problems are in the files rtest*.mac.  Files rtest1.mac through
rtest13s.mac contain a total of 808 problems.

In the following reference to tests [n,m] means tests rtest`n'.mac
through rtest`m'.mac inclusive.  The following times were obtained on
a Sun 280 (rascal.ics.utexas.edu).

I used MAXIMA version 4.71, AKCL 1.34, and LUCID 2.1.

TESTS       AKCL     LUCID    EXPLORER I      
[1,8]	   157.55    199.66        
[9,13s]    103.00    138.01        
[1,13s]    278.63    388.14    511.1


There were no errors.

Tests were run with the output directed to a file.  The tests
represent a wide spectrum of problems for MAXIMA, and are the standard
verification suite, which I use after changes to the underlying lisp or
to the MAXIMA files, to help determine correctness.  The files consist
of alternating problem, and answer, with the result of the problem
being compared against the answer.

In neither lisp did I use the floating point chip.  This is because the
saved image is often used on machines without such a chip.  Generally
the LUCID floating point calculations were single float and the AKCL
ones double float.   I don't believe however that the tests are
very floating point intensive.

The complete list of files is 
 '("rtest1" "rtest1a" "rtest2" "rtest3" "rtest4" "rtest5"
   "rtest6" "rtest6a" "rtest6b" "rtest7" "rtest8" "rtest9"
   "rtest9a" "rtest10" "rtest11" "rtest12" "rtest13" "rtest13s")

It is still the experience of the author, that lisp machines do show
important gains on very large problems, much larger than those done
here.


They are included in /usr2/ftp/pub/maxima-xx.tar.Z on rascal.

NOTE: Although William Schelter would like these changes to be widely
available, a license must be obtained from the NESC, Argonne, Ill.  We
may not give out the files directly, except to users at the University
of Texas at Austin.  Currently Argonne's charges for passing on Maxima,
which we provide them at no cost, are in the range of $1300 to $2800,
depending on whether you are a university, etc.  This has gone up from
$500 18 months ago.  They do, however, provide you with a legal site
license and sources.


   National Energy Software Center
   Argonne National Laboratory
   9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60439

   (312) 972-7250


Documentation for Macsyma includes:

   MACSYMA Reference Manual, Version 10  Vols. I and II, 1983
   Introductory MACSYMA Documentation:  A Collection of Papers, 1982

both of which can be obtained from the Laboratory for Computer Science,
MIT.