Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ubvax!vsi1!apple!baum From: baum@Apple.COM (Allen J. Baum) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: A simple question on RISC Message-ID: <19988@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 4 Nov 88 23:38:13 GMT References: <6544@xanth.cs.odu.edu> <75577@sun.uucp> <10802@cup.portal.com> <76083@sun.uucp> <547@m3.mfci.UUCP> Reply-To: baum@apple.UUCP (Allen Baum) Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. Lines: 18 [] >In article <547@m3.mfci.UUCP> colwell@mfci.UUCP (Robert Colwell) writes: >>>The 801 had a very complex register >>>file (3 reads, two writes). > >Maybe this is due to all the hair they added on behalf of their step-multiply >and divide; this is one of the RISC patents. Apparently, they can interrupt >on some of the bits in the register file. Actually-- 3 reads - required for indexed store (RegA-> Mem(RegB+RegX) 2 writes- required for delayed loads (load RgA in cyc 1, stores in cyc 2 along with whatever else is executed in cyc 2) Um, about interrupting on some of the bits in the register file- I don't recall seeing that in the patents. Do you have a reference? -- baum@apple.com (408)974-3385 {decwrl,hplabs}!amdahl!apple!baum