Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!ptimtc!rdmei!icspub!astemgw!wnoc-tyo-news!rena!lkbreth!trebor
From: trebor@lkbreth.foretune.co.jp (Robert J Woodhead)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Adding fire to the segmentation flamefest...
Summary: A Code Warrior speaks out... (?)
Keywords: segments suck
Message-ID: <9234@lkbreth.foretune.co.jp>
Date: 3 Apr 91 02:17:00 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Foretune Co., Ltd.  Tokyo Japan
Lines: 48

[*** Warning : tongue-in-cheek-detected ***]

I've programmed a lot of beasts of both species in my day, down in the
computer game trench wars (including implementeding UCSD pascal on
6502's, 8086's, and 6809's -- at one point I had a Japanese MSDOS
box that would tell me "Welcome to Apple Pascal" after an appropriate
incantation [and a totally useless copy of Apple Pascal to make it
legal!]).

I'm firmly of the opinion that segments suck bigtime [translation for
those with PHd's : "segmented architectures are a solution to a problem
that no longer exists, and arguably, never did"]

The quintessential segmented architecture of recent days is Intel's
80X86 series.  The original 8086 used segments as a quick and dirty
way to expand the address space past 16 bits.  With segments, you didn't
need to have an ALU greater than 16 bits in length; this saved real
estate on the chip.  Segments also reduced the average length of an
instruction, and thus reduced the amount of memory a program took up
[and, as we all knew, memory had been expensive, was expensive, and
forever would be expensive!]

Given that, with a simple translation, it was claimed that 8080 programs
would run on the 8086 (not that, to my knowledge, anyone was insane
enough to ever try it!), the 8086 could be described, in a vernacular
stolen from Data General, as "a chip with a bag on it's side containing
an 8080").

This proud Intel tradition of baggy cpu's lives on to this day.

Given the current environment of fast, cheap memory, cpu's should worry
about reading, writing, and 'rithmetic.  "Segmentation," which is really
just a special case of virtual memory, should be handled by the memory
system and the operating system.

Hopefully, after we get through the 80986, Intel will run out of digits
and the "segmentation heresy" will be relegated to the dusts of ancient
history (which, in our business, is any date older than the oldest
unexpired message in your news spool).

Unless, of course, they decide to count in hex; in which case, the
80F86 may be proudly inflicted upon the world!

-- 
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs.   trebor@foretune.co.jp |
| "The Force. It surrounds us; It enfolds us; It gets us dates on Saturday |
| Nights." -- Obi Wan Kenobi, Famous Jedi Knight and Party Animal.         |