Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!paperboy!meissner From: meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Bitfield and loop instructions--a good idea? Message-ID: Date: 16 Apr 91 16:52:39 GMT References: <1991Apr15.193425.3436@waikato.ac.nz> <2302@spim.mips.COM> Sender: news@OSF.ORG Organization: Open Software Foundation Lines: 21 In-reply-to: zalman@mips.com's message of 16 Apr 91 01:36:59 GMT In article <2302@spim.mips.COM> zalman@mips.com (Zalman Stern) writes: | Rlimi does left and right logical immediate shifts. (I think it corresponds | to what most shifter hardware looks like internally as well.) I hacked some | assembly for this machine and was amazed at how often rlimi came in handy. | (This instruction is so cool I'd almost advocate adding it to our | instruction set. But Earl would probably hit me over the head with an R4000 | architecture manual and make me write "Thou shalt pay attention to dynamic | instruction frequency statistics!" 100 times on my whiteboard.) I wouldn't be surprised if a workstation running X, actually could do a fair bit of these instructions in the server bitblt's. Of course if you don't have a direct display, but use an X terminal, you wouldn't see these. However, it's probably harder to measure dynamic instruction frequency in such a case..... -- Michael Meissner email: meissner@osf.org phone: 617-621-8861 Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142 Considering the flames and intolerance, shouldn't USENET be spelled ABUSENET?