" ASSOCIATION OF COMPUTER USERS VOLUME 3.1, NUMBER 4, APRIL 1980 " In This Issue: CROMEMCO's System Two and Z-2H BENCHMARK REPORT is publishedand distributed by The Association ofComputer Users,a not-for-profituser association, and authoredby the Business Research Division of the UniversityofColorado. ACU'sdistributionofBENCHMARKREPORT is " solelyfor the information and independent evaluationof its members, and does not in anywayconstituteverification of thedata contained, concurrencewith any of the conclusions herein, or endorsementof the productsmentioned. ®Copyright 1980,ACU. No part of this report may be reproducedwithout priorwrittenpermission from theAssociationofComputer Users. Firstclass postage paid at Boulder, Colorado 80301. CROMEMCO MODELS SYSTEM TWO AND Z-2H: BENCHMARK REPORT " TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 3 Executive Summary 4 Summary of Benchmark Results 5 Benchmarks: The Process: Cromemco Models System Two and Z-2H 6 Overview of Programs and Results 7 Detail Pages Pricing Components 13 Hardware Components 14 Software Components 17 Support Services 20 Summary of User Comments 21 Conclusions 23 " 2 PREFACE " These two models from the System Two and the Z-2H, are evaluated in this fourth report covering small computing systems. Previously reviewed in this series have been the Texas Instruments 771, the Pertec PCC 2000, and the North Star Horizon. And still to come are eight more systems in the under- sls,ooo price range. The goal of this series is to provide users with compara tive information on a number of small systems, information which will be valuable in selecting from among the many alternatives available. We have found that many published comparisons of computing systems report only the technical specifications supplied by manufacturers, and such information is difficult to interpret and seldom comparable across different computers. What the potential buyer needs to know is how well the equipment performs in spe- cific applications, and how that performance compares across computing systems, information best provided by running benchmark programs on the systems to be compared. The heart of these reports is the comparative results of running five benchmark " programs on each of the systems under study, programs which represent capabili- ties needed by users in an operating environment. The results of these bench- mark runs provide comparative information which is simply unavailable from any other independent source. The benchmark programs themselves have been designed to run without change on most small computer systems. Thus, differences in per formance among systems can be attributed to differences in computing capabili- ties. In addition to the benchmark results, these reports contain information on the alternative configurations which can be assembled, internal and external stor- age and memory capabilities, languages available, the operating system, availa- bility of applications packages, and general comments on the ease of use of the I system. Finally, a survey of users is conducted, and their comments on ease of use, relationships with hardware and software suppliers, problems encoun- tered, etc. , are included in each report. The experiences of users add a " dimension of reality to the technical details of the system. 3 Cromemco, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY in series, and also com- Compared to the three other systems tested so far this (machines costing $15,000 " pared to the twelve systems reported upon in Series #2 offers the business user to $25,000), Cromemco's System Two computer system Retailing for just over $9,000, impressive capabilities at a competitive price. a 64K central the Z-80 (Zilog's microprocessor chip) based system contains Terminal. With the memory, dual 5h inch floppy disks, a printer, and a CRT a Z-2H, priced at $15,280 addition of an 11 megabyte hard disk, the unit becomes which, though priced higher The System Two is a floppy disk based system favorably in per- than other systems evaluated in this series, compared generally better than formance. The performance of the System Two was exception of the North Star that of other systems evaluated (with the Only in Horizon, with its hardware enhanced arithmetic capabilities) . the System Two the CPU intensive test using square roots and squares did on other systems. fail to improve on times we have recorded except for the addition of The Z-2H system is the same as the System Two of the hard disk system in an 11 megabyte hard disk capability. The use dramatically improved execution those benchmark tests requiring I/O capability of the hard time. In addition, the greatly increased storage data bases. Because disk makes it ideal for applications using large technology, where the read/write this disk system uses "Winchester" type are in a sealed chamber, head floats on a cushion of air and the units environment Addi- the unit requires no special handling or operating as opposed to 300- tionally, Cromemco estimates 8,000 hours of operation " 500 for floppy disk media. Z-2H for at most five Though the we contacted have owned their users reputation for months, their experiences to date substantiate Cromemco's producing rugged, reliable computer systems. including offers a variety of programming languages Cromemco The RATFOR (Rational FORTRAN), and a Macro Assembler tests is an extended 32K structured BASIC we used in our benchmark which we found to be version with structured programming capabilities applications. quite suitable for business programming software. This is left to the Cromemco does not offer application of the users we talked to dealer or user. In our survey, most "**_ own applications sott doing their own programming and developing their from a software sup- ware. Starting with a "canned" package purchased to fit their particular plier, these users would customize the programs needs . system a rugged reliable performer. The The System Two should prove to be and capability, and with the addition of a hard possesses a great deal of computing storage capacity with fast access to disk system in the Z-2H, provides a large applications. data, an important consideration in data oriented " 4 BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, " % " *The timings shown here are for Cromemco' s floppy based System Two; see pages 9, 11 and 12 for the faster timings with the hard disk model Z-2H. 5 THE BENCHMARK PROCESS The benchmark programs were run in Cromemco 32K Structured BASIC on a Cromemco " Z-2H configured with 64K (64,000) bytes of memory, two 5k inch floppy disk drives (350 kilobytes total), an 11 Megabyte (MB) hard disk drive, and a 180 character per second printer. This system is identical to the System Two with the exception of the added hard disk capability, and Cromemco asked us to run They the tests both with and without the hard disk to observe the differences. shipped the unit to our offices in Boulder, where, with the help of their personnel, we set up the system. Contrary to our experience with the three microcomputers tested in this series, the Z-2H ran problem-free from the time we plugged it in until the time we shipped it back. in accordance Before running the test programs, it was necessary to modify them in the with Cromemco' s version of BASIC. As has been our experience the past, major area of change was in the Input/Output statements. In implementing the a useful necessary program we discovered the BASIC manual to be document, but not without weaknesses including: (1) It would not be very easy examples of statements in to learn from this manual; (2) there were not enough Despite use; and (3) inadequate cross-referencing between related statements. " with docu- these weaknesses, we've found that as our experience microcomputer to thus easing mentation has grown, we've begun to anticipate what look our search through the manual. documentation, we noticed After familiarizing ourselves with the system and its these special features of Cromemco's 32K BASIC: compiler and A semi-compiling design that combines the features of a interpreter in order to increase execution times. A variety of useful error-checking and debugging features is establishing A KSAM (Keyed Sequential Access Method) that useful in data bases. ELSE Structured programming statements including IF . THEN DO . WHILE . ENDWHILE, and REPEAT . UNTIL subsequently CALL A Procedure Library that allows the user to store and procedures as needed. This simplifies the linking of user defined, often used routines, with applications programs. " 6 Colorado, modifications, for, ENDDO, After the operating system and 32K Structured BASIC are loaded into memory, the user is left with approximately 19,000 bytes for user programs. This restric- " tion caused us some difficulty in several of our programs. In order to run some of our programs, we had to change the variable mode from long floating point variables (8 bytes per number, 14 digits of accuracy) to short floating point variables (4 bytes per number, 6 digits of accuracy). For consistency, we ran all programs in the short floating point mode which, in the cases where the program would have run in long floating point mode, decreased execution time by several seconds. A feature we particularly liked was the user defined function keys. Through an operating system procedure, the user can assign system commands to each of the twenty keys so that by pressing one button, various procedure or utility com- mands can be executed. We felt this capability could save significant typing time and trouble for the user who needs frequent access to certain programs and procedures . As we entered our benchmark programs, we appreciated the line by line syntax error checking. The BASIC In-Line Editor made corrections quite easy, and we " especially enjoyed the global change capabilities of the Editor. All programs were run with output to the screen (the default) . A simple com- mand was all that was needed to obtain hard copy output as desired.