What is the history behind the Linpack Benchmark?
The Linpack Benchmark is, in some sense, an accident. It was originally designed to assist users of the Linpack package by providing information on execution times required to solve a system of linear equations. The first “Linpack Benchmark” report appeared as an appendix in the Linpack Users’ Guide in 1979. The appendix comprised data for one commonly used path in Linpack for a matrix problem of size 100, on a collection of widely used computers (23 in all), so users could estimate the time required to solve their matrix problem. Over the years other data was added, more as a hobby than anything else, and today the collection includes hundreds of different computer systems.
