Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!samsung!olivea!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!hp4nl!charon!dik
From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Floating Point Risc
Message-ID: <3377@charon.cwi.nl>
Date: 21 Apr 91 08:47:46 GMT
References: <1991Apr20.063947.12811@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <14766@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
Sender: news@cwi.nl
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 19

In article <14766@darkstar.ucsc.edu> haynes@felix.ucsc.edu (99700000) writes:
 > 
 > In article <1991Apr20.063947.12811@sbcs.sunysb.edu> jallen@eeserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (Joseph Allen) writes:
 > >
 > >How's this for a risc processor:  No integer instructions at all.  Addresses
 > ...
 > Except that it isn't a RISC you have just invented the Burroughs B5000,
 > circa 1960 (and continuing to this day in the Unisys A-series machines).
 > Integers are simply unnormalized floating-point numbers with zero exponents.
 > No type conversions, except there is an integerize instruction used
 > before storing values that are declared to be int-s.

More like the Electrologica X8 of the same vintage.  Integers are simply
normalized floating-point numbers.  On this machine normalization was not
as is currently seen, but normalization involved choosing the exponent with
minimal absolute value that would not lose precision.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland
dik@cwi.nl