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From: przemek@liszt.helios.nd.edu (Przemek Klosowski)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Is handling off-alignment important?
Summary: Geez, I looked it up in the manual...
Keywords: VAX, quad-word, alignment
Message-ID: <410@news.nd.edu>
Date: 11 Sep 90 12:46:56 GMT
References: <104037@convex.convex.com> <8840014@hpfcso.HP.COM> <141881@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <1990Sep8.225345.745@quick.com>
Sender: news@news.nd.edu
Organization: University of Notre Dame,  Notre Dame
Lines: 25

In article <1990Sep8.225345.745@quick.com> srg@quick.com (Spencer Garrett) writes:
>In article <141881@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, jputnam@raptor.Eng.Sun.COM (James M.) writes:
>>     Something he shouldn't have about VAX quad-word loads ignoring
>>     low-order bits, and this being a useful feature for LISP.
>> 
>> In article <26376@mimsy.umd.edu> chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) writes:
>> >Since there is no mention of this in the VAX architecture handbook, I
>
>   What may well have happened is that some early LISP implementer just
>"tried it" and found that on his vax the low order bits were ignored.
>
>so maybe he went ahead and used it.  *BUT* since it isn't in the manual,

But, IT IS IN THE MANUAL! second page of the chapter on data representation
of the 1981 edition of the 'VAX architecture handbook' prominently says that

o  Quadword
A quadword is eight contiguous bytes starting on an arbitrary byte boundary

And it really took me about 60 sec to find it ...
	przemek
--
			przemek klosowski (przemek@ndcva.cc.nd.edu)
			Physics Dept
			University of Notre Dame IN 46556