SPARCompilers announcement

[David Hough]

The following announcement is notable for a few things:

* No known optimizer bugs today, unless you consider allocating variables
  to extended-precision registers to be a bug.

* The faster correctly-rounded base conversion I have mentioned from time to
  time is included in libm.  These don't affect SPECmarks.

* At -O4, short functions are inlined now at the source code level.
  To take advantage of this it helps to put all the source code modules into
  one file.  This probably has an amazing effect on whetstones and dhrystones,
  but to Sun's credit no stones are mentioned.
 
* SPECmarks used exclusively to measure performance improvement.

* SPECmark performance improvements were mostly cumulative minor refinements
  that improved most of the SPEC benchmarks rather than major breakthroughs
  that affect only a few.  The ATT-derived pcc and f77 bases for the current 
  compilers have gone about as far as they can go, and significant 
  further improvements require different approaches.

* Prices omitted from announcement, presumably by accident, or maybe 
  somebody was using a sophisticated text processing tool rather than 
  the tried and true (troff).  
  Previous compiler releases ran around $2000.

* These are the last compilers from Sun for the Sun-3.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

NEW SPARCOMPILERS FROM SUN
IMPROVE SYSTEM PERFORMANCE 10-18%

New OPEN LOOK Versions of SPARCworks Developer Tools and NSE Available


MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --April 9, 1991-- Sun Microsystems today
introduced new releases of several members of its SPARCompiler(TM)
family of language products. The new releases improve SPARC(R) system
performance by 10-18%, according to benchmarks published by the Systems
Performance Evaluation Cooperative (SPEC).  The performance gain
results from improved code generation and optimization technology. The
new SPARCompilers include C, C++, FORTRAN, Pascal and Modula-2
products.  The SPARCompiler family also contains Common Lisp, Ada and
COBOL products.

Sun also introduced OPEN LOOK(R) versions of its SPARCompiler software
developer tools, and NSE(TM), Sun's workgroup development product.  Now
called SPARCworks(TM), the developer tools consist of dbx and dbxtool
debugging tools and Sun SourceBrowser, a window-based search tool.
SPARCworks tools are integrated with other Sun productivity products
such as OpenWindows(TM) Developers Guide, File Manager, Mail Tool and
other DeskSet(TM) tools, so a development team can take advantage of a
visually consistent desktop environment.  SPARCworks tools are bundled
with Sun C, C++, FORTRAN, Pascal and Modula-2.

NSE helps teams of software developers work together to produce and
maintain software projects.  It supports version control, configuration
management and parallel development.  In addition to the new OPEN LOOK
graphical user interface, NSE now includes utilities that ease backup
and restoration of project data and new user documentation to help with
setting up and using the product.  This robust tool is used for product
development by Sun's NSE and operating systems development teams, among
others.

SPARCompilers Superior for SPARC Architecture

SPARCompilers conform to most commonly accepted domestic and
international standards.  With this release, Sun introduced support for
ANSI-C as part of its Sun C compiler, which will aid the migration of
applications to Sun's System V Release 4-based operating system.

SPARCompilers are proven products, with a long track record of
successfully compiling thousands of sophisticated user applications.
They were designed in concert with the SPARC architecture and hardware
implementations to take full advantage of SPARC.  SPARCompilers
interact efficiently through interlanguage calling.  This lets
programmers combine existing proven code with modules written in other
languages, allowing for mixed-language development and easy migration
to new languages.  The SPARCompilers also let programmers access the
libraries of Sun system components such as SunOS(TM), OpenWindows and
graphics, reducing application development time.  SPARCompilers are all
fully integrated with NSE.

SPARCompiler Availability and Support

Sun offers full customer support, training programs and extensive user
documentation for all its SPARCompilers and software development
tools.  Each SPARCompiler and NSE is sold separately and all are
available immediately for SunOS 4.1 releases.

Sun C 1.1, C++ 2.1, FORTRAN 1.4 and Pascal 2.1 are priced for a single
license, Sun Modula-2 2.3 for a single license and NSE 1.3 at for a
20-user license.  All prices include media and documention.  Volume and
academic discounts are available.


			SPECmark Improvements
			---------------------


			Previous	New		    
			SPECmarks	SPECmarks	Improvement

SPARCstation SLC	   7.6		   8.8		   15.8%

SPARCstation IPC	  10.0		  11.8		   18%

SPARCstation 2		  N/A		  21		   N/A

SPARCstation 330	  11.8		  13.4		   13.5%

SPARCserver 470		  17.6		  19.4		   10.2%

SPARCserver 490		  17.6		  19.4		   10.2%


SPECmark improvements resulting from new SPARCompiler enhancements.
Based on Sun C 1.1 and Sun FORTRAN 1.4 compilers.


Sun Microsystems, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a
leading worldwide supplier of network-based distributed computing
systems, including professional workstations, servers and UNIX
operating system and productivity software.


###



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