Atari BASIC vs. Altirra 1.55 vs. TBXL 1.5 vs. FastBASIC 3.5

[reifsnyderb]

Altirra BASIC is quite fast on the XL when the math pack is upgraded to Fast Math F.  We should have a benchmark of that combination made as well.   🙂

 

 

 

[Ricky Spanish]

1 hour ago, phaeron said:

Altirra BASIC still has to use the math pack built into the OS for math operations. BASIC XE can afford to use a faster math pack as it has a lot more ROM space + a disk-based extension.

Ok, so if I understand correctly, Altirra BASIC is very fast when used with Altirra emulator, but not with real hardware. Is this a correct assumption ? 

[phaeron]

44 minutes ago, Ricky Spanish said:

Ok, so if I understand correctly, Altirra BASIC is very fast when used with Altirra emulator, but not with real hardware. Is this a correct assumption ? 

No, this is completely wrong. As I said in the other thread, there is nothing in Altirra BASIC that depends on the emulator. It is a pure 6502-based BASIC interpreter in an 8K cartridge, the same as Atari BASIC. It executes the same way in Altirra, on any other emulator, or on the real hardware.

 

Benchmark Altirra BASIC against Atari BASIC and you'll see a speed difference. It is not going to be as fast as BASIC XE, but it is faster than Atari BASIC.

 

[reifsnyderb]

1 hour ago, Ricky Spanish said:

Ok, so if I understand correctly, Altirra BASIC is very fast when used with Altirra emulator, but not with real hardware. Is this a correct assumption ? 

I use Altirra BASIC on an EPROM on real hardware and it works great.  It's also much faster than Atari BASIC.  Replacing the stock math pack with Fast Math F+ adds yet another performance enhancement.

[Ricky Spanish]

On 4/1/2023 at 8:19 PM, reifsnyderb said:

Fast Math F+ adds yet another performance enhancement.

And if you don't have a burner ? Then what ? 

Also just tried OSS BASIC XE vs TURBO BASIC XL using AHL's benchmark. 

TBXL was 9 seconds faster. 

[reifsnyderb]

5 minutes ago, Ricky Spanish said:

And if you don't have a burner ? Then what ? 

Also just tried OSS BASIC XE vs TURBO BASIC XL using AHL's benchmark. 

TBXL was 9 seconds faster. 

Well, a lot of people have U1MB cards that could be used.  It's possible to put the OS (and math pack) in the RAM.  Also, I just figured out how to upgrade the math pack from the PBI.  So, there's options.

[Ricky Spanish]

1 hour ago, reifsnyderb said:

Well, a lot of people have U1MB cards that could be used.  It's possible to put the OS (and math pack) in the RAM.  Also, I just figured out how to upgrade the math pack from the PBI.  So, there's options.

 My mods are in my sig.. I don't plan on getting the U1MB. So I guess I'm SOL there. I download the Fast Math F+ .atr, tried loading the various programs on it to no avail.