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From: kludge@gitpyr.UUCP (Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: Using C as an aid to hand writing assembler
Message-ID: <1763@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 10-May-86 11:54:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.1763
Posted: Sat May 10 11:54:58 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 14-May-86 02:04:52 EDT
References: <817@harvard.UUCP> <Navajo.494> <460@cubsvax.UUCP> <850@harvard.UUCP> <491@rna.UUCP> <261@atari.UUcp>
Reply-To: kludge@gitpyr.UUCP (Scott Dorsey)
Organization: Georgia College Of Universal Knowledge
Lines: 36

In article <261@atari.UUcp> dyer@atari.UUcp (Landon Dyer) writes:
>Here's a perverse thought: Has anyone done any research on
>architechures to help people writing /assembly language/?  (Maybe the
>PDP-11, VAX or IBM-370 architechures are optimal, or maybe no one has
>ever considered making life easier for those who spend their lives
>coding "down unda.")

   Ever seen the UCSD Pascal system?  It had a Pascal compiler which
compiled down to P-Code, which was like a machine code with high-
level language features.  The P-Code was then interpreted by the
machine, in my case an Apple II.  I wrote an assembler in Pascal which
allowed you to code directly in P-Code.  Compared to the 6502, it
was pure joy... array support, real numbers.  It was slow, but better
than either the Pascal or the Basic.
   I know what I like in an architecture.  I could build an instruction
set that is just right for me.  However, other people might not like
it.   Assembly coding is a very personal thing.  I think that something
like a P-code might be in order to allow any person to develop code
using his 'own' instruction set, and have it compile to machine code
for other machines.  It would be mindblowingly slow, especially because
th architecture I would use would be unlike the machines I am forced
to work on.
    BCD support?  Come on.
    And, no, I don't like using floating-point instructions to
    manipulate characters. 
-- 
-------
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       " If value corrupts
kaptain_kludge         then absolute value corrupts absolutely"

ICS Programming Lab (Where old terminals go to die), Rich 110,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332
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