Whetstone

See also: whetstone

English

Etymology

The benchmark is named after the Whetstone compiler built at a English Electric Company division in Whetstone, Leicestershire.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /wɛtstəʊn/

Proper noun

Whetstone

1. An area in the borough of Barnet, Greater London, England (OS grid ref TQ2693).
2. A large village and civil parish in Blaby district, Leicestershire, England (OS grid ref SP5597).
3. A census-designated place in Cochise County, Arizona, United States.
4. An unincorporated community in Clay County, West Virginia, United States.
5. A surname.
6. (computing) A synthetic benchmark for evaluating the power and performance of a computer, primarily based on floating-point arithmetic.

   Coordinate term: Dhrystone

   • 2016, Joseph D. Dumas II, Computer Architecture: Fundamentals and Principles of Computer Design‎^[1], second edition, CRC Press, →ISBN:

     Developed in the early 1970s by Harold Curnow and Brian Wichmann, Whetstones was originally released in Algol and Fortran versions but was later translated into several other languages.

   • 2018, Sajjan G. Shiva, Advanced Computer Architectures, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 67:

     Whetstone reflects mostly numerical computing, using a substantial amount of floating-point arithmetic.

Noun

Whetstone (plural Whetstones)

1. (computing) A single instruction of the Whetstone benchmark, often expressed as a value per second.
   • 1994, Binod C. Agrawal, Larry R. Symes, Future of Computerisation in Institutions of Higher Learning, Concept Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 92:

     The Prodigy 4 does 500,000 Whetstones.

Derived terms

• kWIPS, MWIPS