The command-line compiler built-in Turbo Pascal 7.0 for DOS shows how long it took to compile a certain source code. To benchmark early systems with a real-life benchmark I use Turbo Pascal 7.0 with the Bloxinies II source code.

I've found that the compiling the source code leans mostly on ALU and memory performance. A tiny bit of I/O is used when writing the binaries to disk so results may vary a 0.5 second when using a slow disk opposed to a fast disk.

My benchmark method


Unzip the files to C:\TPBENCH . Boot into a clean system ('safe mode' DOS, press SHIFT when loading DOS to avoid any drivers or memory managers being loaded).

Run BENCH.BAT inside C:\TPBENCH and wait for the benchmark to complete. Repeat the benchmark 3 times and record the fastest score.

Image
A score of 5.7 seconds.

Benchmarks run with this application
CPU (chipset) Turbo Pascal 7.0 score
V 30 (IBM 8530)
28.00
8086 -2 (IBM 8530)
31.30
8088 -1-P (ARC-88)
38.80