n Primes by Trial Division Results

7 November 2024

This is a simple benchmark, which measures the time it takes to calculate and display the first n prime numbers, using the method of trial division.

The point is to have some fixed quantum of work that is simple enough to be expressed in a limited BASIC language, as might have been implemented in ROM in an '80s home micro. That there are more efficient ways to calculate prime numbers is irrelevant. Some results in the table are marked null, indicating printing was suppressed. No other attempt was made to account for differences in I/O performance; a fast machine with a slow console will deliver a slow result (see especially the Forth OpenFirmware results).

Times are in seconds, rounded down (to the nearest tenth, if less than 3). Applesoft BASIC provides the reference implementation, for no other reason than that's the one I wrote first. Source code for all variants is linked at left. All compiler options at default settings unless otherwise noted.

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n Primes by Trial Division Results