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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.works
Subject: Re: PDP-8 Story
Message-ID: <5587@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-May-85 16:19:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5587
Posted: Fri May 10 16:19:25 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 10-May-85 16:19:25 EDT
References: <1864@topaz.UUCP>, <3500002@pbear.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 30

> What I would like to see is a proposal of a "next generation" PDP-8,
> 
> Something with say:
> 
> 	16 bit memory
> 	65K fields
> 	256 fields (yields 24Mb memory)
> 	each field broken to 256 256 word pages
> 	direct addressing mode (so arryas and stuff don't have to be paged)
> 	built in extended AU
> 	other goodies.
> 
> 	Oh Yeah, a stack would be quite useful.

To a sloppy first approximation, if you squint a lot, the Intel 8086
meets these specs.  Yuck.  16-bit address spaces are the pits, even
if you have lots of them.

> This type of architecture would encourage (NOT force) the programmer to
> write localized code for his routines. Also language compilers would be
> designed to take advantage of this concept.

You mean "language compilers could be designed, at horrendous cost in
pain and effort, to take advantage of this concept".  Page boundaries
and field boundaries are the two massive headaches in building a decent
pdp8 compiler; I studied this for a while years ago.  "There just ain't
no graceful way."
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry