Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pro-generic.cts.com!ericmcg
From: ericmcg@pro-generic.cts.com (Eric Mcgillicuddy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Apple's committment to the // line
Message-ID: <7029.infoapple.net@pro-generic>
Date: 8 Nov 89 07:19:46 GMT
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In-Reply-To: message from haven!adm!smoke!gwyn@purdue.edu

orthogonal in architecture terms basically means no special purpose registers.
The 68000 has no accumulator,but has 9 index registers and 8 data registers.
Instructions can operate on any register in the same way (with some
restrictions) it is thus more orthogonal than a 6502. The 88000 set has 32
registers and does not even have a status register, again all instructions can
operate equally on all registers. This is the most orthgonal processorr on the
market today. This is how I feel processors should be, after all it's how I
designed the one for my thesis. The special registers of the Intel series and
the 6800/6500 series are passe in my opinion.

p.s. doug - chill out ok?