RatFor on the IBM PC/AT

[Larry Carroll]

You must have been told wrong.  The purpose of RatFor is to allow you 
to write C-like code which is translated into ForTran source for 
compilation by a ForTran compiler.  It's a public domain program for 
those with no (or a terrible) C compiler who do have a ForTran compiler.

The ForTran source produced by RatFor (and other such interpreters) 
is pretty ugly and introduces a 5-10% speed penalty.  Also, the ForTran 
compilers occasionally do some erroneous optimization of RatFor'd code. 
These errors are pretty rare, and the speed penalty is generally made up 
for by the excellence of ForTran compilers.  The ugly ForTran is looked 
at only when you're looking at a hex/octal dump to find the exact location 
and nature of an error.  Then you change the RatFor code, not the ForTran 
code.

I've a question of my own about Unix/Xenix on the AT.  Benchmarks have 
shown only a 2-3 times speed advantage of the AT over the PC.  If you use 
a multi-user OS, doesn't the overhead pretty much eat up that advantage, 
giving you in effect only PC capability?
						Larry @ jpl-vlsi
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