a measurement of the speed with which computer programs are run. Because different instructions take different amounts of time, speed measured in MIPS depends on the exact program that the computer is running. For this reason, speed tests are usually done with standard programs such as Whetstone and Dhrystone.
Another problem is that equivalent programs take different numbers of instructions on different CPUs. To compare different computers meaningfully, it is common practice to calculate MIPS using the number of instructions that a program would require on a VAX rather than on the computer actually being tested. This way, equivalent programs are always viewed as having the same number of instructions and the speed of the computer under test is the only variable.
