Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!nrl-cmf!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ut-sally!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
From: bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: RISC is a nasty no-no!
Message-ID: <752@esunix.UUCP>
Date: 16 Mar 88 18:13:48 GMT
References: <9788@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Organization: Evans & Sutherland, Salt Lake City, Utah
Lines: 19

From article <9788@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>, by oconnor@sungoddess.steinmetz (Dennis M. O'Connor):
> An article by daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown) says:

> Why is it we have to reinvent the wheel so often ? N-dimensional
> arrays, whether column or row major order, can always be accessed
> without run-time multiplies. And can still be in a continuous block of
> memory. The method for doing this is at least 14 years old : I heard
> about it in 1974.

If memory serves, the ancient FORTRAN-5 compiler on the Univac 1108
did arrays this way. The old beast had hardware support for subscripting
arrays using index vectors.

This means that the idea goes back into the late '50s at least.

-- 
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate:     {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
        I am solely responsible for what I say.