Absoft Corp. has announced advancements for customers developing and
maintaining Fortran programs on Intel-based Mac OS systems. These
improvements affect three areas of code development and are
incorporated into Absoft’s newly released Pro Fortran v10.2 for Mac
OS/Intel: 1) increased application speed, 2) superior debugging and
3) new tools for Fortran developers on Mac OS/Intel.
Wood Lotz president of Absoft says the primary increase in
application speed is a result of Absoft’s support for the Intel’s new
SSE4.1 vector instructions. And because not all Mac hardware systems
support SSE4.1, Absoft Pro Fortran v10.2 automatically determines
processor type and optimizes for SSE4.1 vector extensions when
appropriate. Absoft states that internal tests have demonstrated
SSE4.1 can increase speed up to 10 percent on several types of code
— automatically, without code changes.
Improved Fortran debugging with Pro Fortran v10.2 is provided using
Absoft’s latest Fx3 debugger with Apple’s Xcode 3.1. Absoft customers
can now display and modify the values of program variables located in
COMMON blocks, allocated in static storage, or declared inside
Fortran 90 modules. These capabilities are available when debugging
either 32-bit or 64-bit executables on Mac OS/Intel based systems.
The updated Pro Fortran v10.2 IDE simplifies code development and
maintenance in several ways, one of the most interesting being,
Absoft’s proprietary Fortran module savvy parallel make facility,
Lotz says. First, the new parallel make can substantially decrease
build times for large projects by taking advantage of multi-core
architectures and compiling two or more independent program units
simultaneously. Second, Absoft’s make facility automatically
determines Fortran module dependencies, thereby eliminating the need
to continually track and order compilation sequences by hand, as is
required when using alternative compilers.
“The new Apple Intel machines are very fast and customers love them
as development platforms,” Lotz says. “Absoft has worked with Apple
for over 25 years, and our new Pro Fortran v10.2 compilers not only
leverage the full performance capabilities of the latest multi-core
machines, but Pro Fortran includes tools designed exclusively for
Fortran developers on Mac. No other vendor matches this combination
of performance and functionality for the Mac OS/Intel customer,”
continued Lotz.
Absoft’s new Pro Fortran v10.2 is available immediately. Prices start
at US$299. Complete product details are available at:
http://www.absoft.com/Absoft_MacIntel_Compiler.htm