While digging into some of the old TI PPC Notes PDFs I have to figure out why the TI CC40 matrix routines weren't working that I was writing (what? you don't have copies? You should all have copies of the PPC Journal competitor...you just never know when they might be of use! See ** below :-), I came across another TI speed test that caught my eye.
You remember the types of problems people used to do:
* Calculate 1000 digits of PI as fast as you can.
* Factor 9999999997 as fast as you can
etc.
This was to calculate EXACT factorials as fast as possible. A program to compute exact factorials in FAST MODE on the TI59 was presented in V8N5P5. Results?
It computed the exact factorial of 610 in 7 hours and 29 minutes.
I pulled out my trusty HP49g+ in exact mode and using << 610 ! >> TEVAL got 9.0956 seconds.
Then I pulled out my Tungsten C (400Mhz X-scale) running Power48, and on the HP49 emulation in exact mode did the same thing.
Time? 2.3901 seconds.
Wow. The HP49g+ is nearly 2962 times faster than the old TI--59 program and my Tungsten C running the HP49 emulator is nearly 11272 times faster.
What a world we live in 22 years later.
Gene
** These are available on Viktor Toth's web site and on the HHC2004 conference CD.