DOS ain't dead

testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator (Emulation)

posted by Oso2k, 29.04.2026, 16:56

> I'm on the wrong machine right now, so I don't have precise benchmarks. And
> I tested the emulator under OpenBSD (i386) on a jump drive. Note that I'm
> more interested in estimated 8086 speed. Obviously "native" speed is less
> noticeable.
>
> In order of fastest to slowest assemblers I tested:
>
> * A86 (super fast) -- 5 secs
> * as86 (from bcc/dev86) -- 50 secs.
> * a72 / ra -- 1min20 or 1min40
> * wasmr or jwasmr -- 4min
> * mininasm or tinyasm -- 5min
> * nasm16 -- 6min
>
> In other words, I wanted to know what would be ultra slow on a real 8086,
> for academic curiosity.
>
> I also tested a few compilers and interpreters. Unsurprisingly, things like
> AWK and REXX are pretty slow compared to native compiled code (e.g. Turbo
> Pascal).
>
> * https://github.com/davidly/ntvdm
>
> AFAIK, this is only 8086 / MS-DOS 3.3 emulation but "mostly" easy to use
> via cmdline. (No extra data files needed.)


These are times to do what exactly?

Complete thread:

• testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 29.04.2026, 05:41 (Emulation)
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Oso2k, 29.04.2026, 16:56
    • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 30.04.2026, 02:45
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 01.05.2026, 13:11
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 01.05.2026, 13:23
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 02.05.2026, 00:40
    • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - rr, 02.05.2026, 16:00
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 02.05.2026, 20:52
    • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 07.05.2026, 13:33
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - RayeR, 07.05.2026, 15:38
        • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 08.05.2026, 15:22
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 10.05.2026, 05:38
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Khusraw, 03.05.2026, 12:56
    • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 08.05.2026, 04:39
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 08.05.2026, 14:49
        • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 09.05.2026, 09:58
          • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 16.05.2026, 00:27
            • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 16.05.2026, 05:05
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Khusraw, 12.05.2026, 12:29