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From: kludge@gitpyr.UUCP (Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: Addressing modes
Message-ID: <1427@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Feb-86 17:14:15 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.1427
Posted: Sun Feb 16 17:14:15 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Feb-86 06:23:03 EST
References: <946@garfield.UUCP> <3421@nsc.UUCP> <1404@gitpyr.UUCP> <175@oasys.UUCP>
Reply-To: kludge@gitpyr.UUCP (Scott Dorsey)
Organization: Georgia College Of Universal Knowledge
Lines: 25
Keywords: obsolescence, instruction set, addressing mode

a@oasys.UUCP writes:
>I think it's a shame that all these wondedful old computers with strange
>architectures are being retired.  [I saw pieces of GPL-3055 in the local
>electronics junk store a year or so ago.]  I think that the current EE/CS
>students are missing a lot by not getting to play with them.

What ever happened to the TI 9900?  How about the PACE and IMP-8 from
Nat'l Semi?  And has anyone out there ever used the Writable Control
Store option on the Burroughs 5500?  There's some great stuff out there
that has been long forgotten, (except by the gov't.  If you want to see
some neat stuff, take a look at some of the AN/YUK manuals!).
   Has anyone out there ever done any research on the increase in code
density produced by various addressing modes/instructions vs. the effort
to decode them?  I don't mean RISC stuff, I mean some really hairy stuff,
like infinite indirection (oh, how I would love to see that!).
   Just once, I'd like to see, oh, say a 32000 with a RISC banked register
structure and port-mapped I/O.  And whatever happened to port-mapped I/O
anyway?
-------
Disclaimer: Everything I say is probably a trademark of someone.  But
            don't worry, I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

Scott Dorsey
ICS Programming Lab, Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge