Squeak on the Helio

Here's Squeak 2.8 running on the Helio. I've got a GIF picture of MicroSeeker (in 1-bit color) saved in the image, and I added an entry to the "Do" menu to display it. The display on the Helio is 160 x 160.

I also ran the Integer benchmark function, and the numbers are:

1,494,768 bytecodes/sec
36,897 sends/sec

Not bad for a 75 MHz MIPS processor. You can click on the pic to the left to see a much bigger version (351 KB).

According to Jay Carlson, the guy who did the Helio port, the performance numbers will double with a compiler flag switch and library update. I thought the VM I got from his page had the switch set, but these numbers are the same as he got before he applied the switch, so I have to assume the flag isn't set.

Here's the exact same image on my laptop. The performance on my 650 MHz PIII laptop is a little better...

66,597,294 bytecodes/sec
1,901,509 sends/sec

The Squeak image running on my Helio is a full-blown development image, minus Morphic and a lot of extra stuff. It has MVC, and the normal (old-style) MVC browsers and such.

The Helio is running PocketLinux, and when it boots it waits for an XModem transfer of an uncompressed Squeak image over the serial port, and then runs that image. Of course, I run the *exact* same image on my Windows laptop... I simply use HyperTerminal to transfer the image after I've made whatever changes I want to it and save it.

Squeak on the VTech Helio