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From: jkenton@pinocchio.encore.com (Jeff Kenton)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Is handling off-alignment important?
Message-ID: <12459@encore.Encore.COM>
Date: 12 Aug 90 14:45:54 GMT
References: <488@array.UUCP>
Sender: news@Encore.COM
Lines: 46

From article <488@array.UUCP>, by colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb):
>>>mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:
>>>> Can anyone give some live examples where software takes advantage of the
>>>> mode where the CPU just zeroes the low-order bits and conitnues...
> 
>>jkenton@pinocchio.encore.com (Jeff Kenton) writes:
>>> The only case I've seen is a low level, PROM based, debugger on the 88k
>>> which runs in this mode.
> 
> In article <467@hitachi.uucp> jon@hitachi.UUCP (Jon Ryshpan) writes:
>> I can't imagine a *worse* place to turn off a trap detecting possible
>> errors than in a debugger.
> 
> I think we can assume that it restores the state while running the debugged
> code; it just turns off the trap for internal use.  I don't think detecting
> errors in the PROM monitor does you much good, anyway, so why worry? :-}

Unfortunately, it doesn't.  As I said in my (partially quoted) posting, I'm
not convinced that the small saving in debugger code is worth the loss of
general error checking it costs you.






















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