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From: haapanen@watdcsu.UUCP (Tom Haapanen [DCS])
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Register functions ?
Message-ID: <424@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Sep-84 22:10:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.424
Posted: Wed Sep 12 22:10:08 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Sep-84 19:41:33 EDT
References: <3@tikal.UUCP>, <8836@watmath.UUCP>, <235@callan.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 16

Now, on a 68020,

register foo() { ...

makes a lot of sense.  The 68020 has a 64-longword on-chip instruction
cache, and this instruction could be used to force a small function
into the cache *and keeping it there*.  I am not certain of the exact
cache locking mechanism used (but I know there is one!), since a
friend just borrowed my MC68020 manual...  

Naturally you couldn't do that to large functions, but it could make
small ones execute like a bat out of h*ll!  (especiall with the 68020
having clock speeds of up to 16.67 MHz...)

Tom Haapanen
{allegra,clyde,decvax,ihnp4,utzoo}!watmath!watdcsu!haapanen