Over the weekend I did some simple compiler tests on the NetBSDs
and other OS's I have up on my MicroVAX II critters.

The test suite was a very simple program, gkermit.  I chose that
because it is simple, stupid, and compiles on anything.  Yeah, I know
that is not a real benchmark killer, but, it points out some of the
compiler issues that I am struggling with on a less-than-one VUP
VAXencritter.  The machine was a MVII KA630 13M ram with scsi disks,
except for the 4.3BSD box which had only 7M ram and esdi drives.
All I did was boot up on different identical Fuji scsi drives to
bring up different OS's, then do a make, timing from the <CR>
until the make finished.

OS                           Gkermit compile time (m:s)
--------------------------   --------------------------
4.3BSD-Tahoe PCC             3:01                 
Ultrix 4.2 VAX-C             2.50
NetBSD-1.2 gcc 2.72          5:05
NetBSD-1.3 gcc 2.72.1        6:07
NetBSD-1.4.3 gcc 2.91        7:08
NetBSD-1.5 gcc 2.91          7:40
--------------------------   --------------------------

Compare that with a VS3100/M38:

OS                           Gkermit compile time (m:s)
--------------------------   --------------------------
Ultrix 4.5 VAX-C             0:50
NetBSD-1.5 gcc 2.91          2:15
--------------------------   --------------------------

Clearly, the effects of bloat are beginning to overburden
the lowly slower-than-1-VUP box.  NetBSD is getting bloated,
and gcc is getting bloated.  It does not show so much on
things like M38 or M76 boxes, but it is beginning to show,
even there.

Also, note how slow things were on the M38 box.

Ultrix C is well optimized for running on the VAX.

gcc 2.91 sucks on slow machines.

Recompiling stripped kernels did not help anything speedwise.
All kernel configs were identical from 4.3BSD through NetBSD-1.5.
They were had stripped down to the bare minimum needed to run,
with no extra features enabled.

Are there any buffering or other speedups I might try?

I dunno what the cure is, but the symptoms are a problem.

No wonder it takes forever to compile a kernel anymore!

Food for thought.... (he sez, muttering under his choppers....(:+}}...).

Bob