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From: toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: MacMusings
Message-ID: <1990Oct26.215728.21351@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 26 Oct 90 21:57:28 GMT
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MQUINN%UTCVM@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU writes:

>Everytime I write a ML program, I always wish I had a couple more registers
>because without them, I have to write more code that copies the register into
>a memory location, then later, more code to reload the register from that
>same memory location, where as, if I had those few more registers I was
>wishing for, I wouldn't have needed that extra load and store code and that
>extra memory to hold the register value.

This is the main complaint that most people have about 65xx programming.

A humble suggestion: stop thinking of the registers as your local variables
(auto's in C). The zero/direct page is your auto variable space. The
accumulator and index registers are your scratch space and temporaries -- they
are 'hidden' from a high level language because they are needed to synthesize
high level language constructs.

Memory based instructions on the 65xx exist for exactly this reason.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu