Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!hen
From: hen@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Bill Henneman)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: taken -vs- untaken branches
Message-ID: <18251@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 6 Jan 88 14:32:08 GMT
References: <496@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <638@l.cc.purdue.edu> <20339@amdahl.amdahl.com> <588@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>
Reply-To: hen@bucsd.bu.edu (Wm. H. Henneman)
Followup-To: comp.arch
Organization: Boston Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 9

As I recall, the original FORTRAN (for the IBM 704) had a FREQUENCY
statement which allowed the programmer to give hints about the
probability of branches being taken.  It was used by the compiler for
index register optimization.  

I was a great fan of this kind of declaration, and I used to put them
in code as another form of comment.  I never could understood why that
statement vanished in later versions.  Maybe it could be
reincorporated in F99.