Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!toddpw
From: toddpw@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Chill, Randy
Message-ID: <1991Jan6.195314.21890@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 6 Jan 91 19:53:14 GMT
References: <1991Jan5.014646.26135@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 44

rhyde@ucrmath.ucr.edu (randy hyde) writes:

> The way to get the '816 to scream (so it outperforms programs on the Mac
>and PC) is to pull out all the stops and count cycles.

Can't argue with that statement. What I will argue with is the way people
refuse to do just that because they think they have to write the whole thing
in assembly or not at all.

The way I write now is to use Orca/C as much as possible, and to throw in
appropriate asm{} statements whenever speed is required. I've gotten damn
good results so far; we'll see if it keeps working when I get to the goodly
sized projects coming up.

>tricky code on the '816 is probably 2-4 times more complex due to those M & X

Again, I think you're trying too hard. In many cases you don't gain anything
by trying to use 8 bit registers, and when you do, it is not that hard to keep
the sizing straight.

>If you want to see the kind of code I'm talking about, study the Apple II
>monitor sometime.

I did. Fervently. Its days are over as far as the 65816 and most software
is concerned so get used to it. Don't waste time trying to optimize the whole
damn program, figure out what needs to be optimized and spend your time on
that.

I know where you're coming from, Randy. I wrote a replacement quit code for
Prodos 8 that does more than any other selector (except 80 column support --
I originally wrote it to run on my ][+) and in the same 3 pages. The code is
actually 770 bytes long, but the last two are MLI return parameters and I don't
need to initialize them.

But after talking to some Microsoft interviewers last year, I began to rrealise
that supercompact or balls-to-the-wall fast code is far less practical in the
real world than most of us assembly jocks would like to think.

So until the next major species of micro comes out (and I hope I can get on
the design team of that), I'll stick to practical programming on today's fluffy
architectures.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu