Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!claris!apple!bcase
From: bcase@Apple.COM (Brian Case)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 16 & 32 bit vs 32 bit only instructions for RISC.
Message-ID: <7766@apple.Apple.Com>
Date: 23 Mar 88 21:01:16 GMT
References: <9651@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <1988Mar22.202304.3077@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: bcase@apple.UUCP (Brian Case)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 7

In article <1988Mar22.202304.3077@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> how hard/expensive is it to decode 16 & 32 bit instructions vs 32 bit only?
>
>Of course, if you cache decoded instructions, as some machines do, the
>decoding overhead becomes considerably less important.

But miss penalties increase.  This is not trivial.