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From: amr@atlantis.egr.duke.edu (Tony Richardson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: __chip keyword is evil
Message-ID: <597@cameron.cs.duke.edu>
Date: 19 Dec 89 17:03:55 GMT
References: <6@microsoft.UUCP>
Sender: news@cameron.cs.duke.edu
Lines: 40

From article <6@microsoft.UUCP>, by w-stephm@microsoft.UUCP (Stephan Mueller):
> In article <411@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> martin@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Ross D. Martin) writes:
>>In article <9532@microsoft.UUCP>, w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) writes:
>>> 	# pragma token-sequence[opt]
>>>
>>> causes the processor to perform an implementation-dependent action. An
>>> unrecognized pragma is ignored.
>>> 
>>> Why __chip? We've got the PORTABLE mechanism already. Why not use it?
>>> Was there some good technical reason? (__chip must go. This is not 
>>> negotiable. ;-)
>>
>>Yes it is.  :-)
>>
> 
> No, actually as it turns out, it is not. :-) :-) (Two smileys, upping the anty)
  ... lots of discussion as to why #pragma's should be used instead of
      __chip for portability reasons.

It seems to me that anything that requires the use of __chip (or the
corresonding #pragma) is going to be non-portable (at the very least it
is going to be different in some respect) so this whole discussion
seems to be a little nit-picky. (We all know not to use __chip except
for data that HAS to be placed in ram accessible by the custom chips. :-))
Actually if I were trying to port a program to a different system I would
prefer to see an "unrecognized keyword __chip" type message than no
message at all to point out portability problems.

I admit I am not trying to an unbiased participant in this discussion.
I like __chip.  When I write programs that use images (or whatever) that
need to be placed in chip ram it find it easy to remember to just stick
__chip in front of the appropriate data structures and it makes programming
a little easier (so I'm lazy). (I have no intention
of porting these programs to other systems -- they wouldn't work.)

It would be nice if Lattice and Manx agreed to standardize on the use
of Amiga specific keywords and pragmas, but I guess it's too late for
that.

Tony Richardson     amr@dukee.egr.duke.edu