Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!dptg!ulysses!andante!alice!jmk
From: jmk@alice.UUCP (Jim McKie)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: MIPS R[23]000 and Kane's book
Message-ID: <10279@alice.UUCP>
Date: 22 Dec 89 03:46:55 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
Lines: 20


In response to <21378@mimsy.umd.edu>:

Kane's book it truly awful, it is useless as a programming
aide for the R[23]000. There are errors, contradictions and
omissions. Particularly amusing is the description of the
MTHI and MTLO instructions - read them both then try to write
exception handling code.
Also, the instruction opcode bit encoding tables
are possibly the most obscure way the information could be
presented.
Fortunately, there is a new edition in the works, which we
are assured will have many of the problems fixed.

However, to be fair, it does mention that placing a branch
instruction in a branch-delay slot is undefined (page A-7),
and 'noreorder' is (indirectly) defined on pages C-5 and C-6.

Jim McKie	research!jmk	-or-	jmk@research.att.com
Bell Labs