Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!Jake-S
From: Jake-S@cup.portal.com (Jake G Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: Saturn Mnemonics
Message-ID: <36353@cup.portal.com>
Date: 30 Nov 90 01:32:36 GMT
References: <2470002@hparc0.HP.COM> <421@lysator.liu.se>
  <12098@life.ai.mit.edu>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 26

I wholeheartedly agree with Graham Fraser's comments regarding HP's Saturn
mnemonics for one reason, which simply is - if the HP folks who wrote the
calculator and who read these postings can readily understand (without
having to learn another set of mnemonics) what people are talking about,
they probably will participate more actively. Yes, the new set of mnemonics
are easier to learn and easier to manipulate, etc, but these new ones were
written by people who did it for fun, hobby, etc. These guys at Corvallis
had to live with the original mnemonics because it's their jobs. I'm sure
they don't all take their jobs home with them and think about this stuff
24 hours a day. The last thing they'd probably want to do is to learn
something simply to be able to understand what the extreme hard core
hobbyists are doing. However, I'm sure that if they read a posting that
contained both a listing in new mnemonics AND HP mnemonics, then these
guys could pick it up right a way, and perhaps would be more apt to jump in
and help out. This is precisely what Bill Wickes suggested on the evening
of November 11th when he visited us at the Philadelphia Area HP user group
meeting. I don't think anyone is suggesting abandoning the great work that
Alonzo and others have done to make the CPU instructions more readily
understood; I'm just suggesting we give the Corvallis people a chance to
understand what's going on without forcing them to jump through some
unnecessary hoops. We'll all benefit from their participation in this
arena, no matter how much people feel it's more macho to go off and 
discover the "goodies" on their own. I personally would rather have this
material handed to me rather than to go out and get it myself.

Jake Schwartz