Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: TI 99/4 speed (was Re: Register Allocation and Aliasing) Message-ID: <65487@sgi.sgi.com> Date: 28 Jul 90 19:56:29 GMT References: <1990Jul24.234511.10564@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> Sender: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 36 In article , jac@paul.rutgers.edu (Jonathan A. Chandross) writes: > > True. But on top of that they made the mistake of getting a Basic from > Microsoft. All of Microsoft's Basics are written (or at least used to > be) in a virtual machine language. All you have to port the Basic is > to write a simulator for that virtual machine. Of course, this adds an > additional layer of indirection and thus seriously slows down your > interpreter. >... > > Jonathan A. Chandross > Internet: jac@paul.rutgers.edu > UUCP: rutgers!paul.rutgers.edu!jac I once worked for a small startup (long dead) that purchased BASIC from Microsoft for an 8086 based system. It was written in 8085 assembly language, with some 8086 assembly language in the math*.asm files. (It used a DEC-10 808* cross assembler built out of the DEC assembler, not INTEL's ASM85 or ASM86.) It was a nice little interpretor, supporting many features of the defunct ANSI Extended BASIC standard. During the time I spent in Seattle talking to Allen, Gates, &co. about how to port it to our operating system (minor details like virtual memory, multi-tasking, and multi-processors conflicted with the original design of the interpretor), I had the distinct impression that it was their original and still at that time primary BASIC. Comments in the code implied that it was written by Gates, Allen, and Monty (?) in the summer of 1973. I think they were working on or had a "compiled" BASIC around 1980 when I dealt with them. Perhaps the compiler used a "virtual machine." Vernon Schryver vjs@sgi.com