Are there any architectures that are simple (sane) to implement sftw on?
The i386 is plagued by it's 16-bit (arguably its 8 or even 4 bit) past.
The HP-PARISC has its brokenness, PPC isn't that great either from what
I've heard. And the list goes on.
Now I will I admit that I am likely wrong, and can expect some flamage
for this. This is intended as a curiousity about something decent.
This can include architectures like the IA64 & the upcoming x86-64. Just
looking for something with lots of GPR's, sane MM support, etc.
Takers
(Borrowing asbestos suit from my uncle)
Mark Hahn wrote:
>> Are there any architectures that are simple (sane) to implement sftw on?
>
>
> sftw? software? yes: portable C/C++ is a fine platform.
Not really the platform, but the architecture, from a C/C++ compiler and
kernel/asm/lowlevel lang development standpoint
>
>> The i386 is plagued by it's 16-bit (arguably its 8 or even 4 bit) past.
>
>
> I wonder what you mean by that. it's ia32's accumulator-based
> architecture, and stack-based FPU that "plague" it, neither of which
> has anything to do with bitness. or are you actually talking about
> instruction encoding?
the limited number of registers (3 bits allocated, IIRC) which limits
the number to 8 minus CS,DS,IP; meaning only 5 GPRs, the requirement of
an (antiquated) BIOS (design), 16-bit bootstrap
>
>> This can include architectures like the IA64 & the upcoming x86-64. Just
>> looking for something with lots of GPR's, sane MM support, etc.
>
If not lots of GPRs, but at least enough to be able to allocate sanely.
>
> alpha? mips?
Yes, I just didn't feel like listing all arch's. Plus, (ducks) the MIPS
is no longer supported by Windoze, and I rarely see any discussion on lk
about this arch, and I forgot about Alpha for a minute.
I admit that I likely look like an idiot right now, and I am not
intending to insult anyone, just curious about this.
On Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 06:07:56PM -0500, Adam Schrotenboer wrote:
> > alpha? mips?
>
> Yes, I just didn't feel like listing all arch's. Plus, (ducks) the MIPS
> is no longer supported by Windoze, and I rarely see any discussion on lk
> about this arch, and I forgot about Alpha for a minute.
Mostly because there is an entirely seperate mailing list for MIPS issues.
You'll find a quite active list that is so prestegious<g> there are guys
that work the MIPS Technologies (The MIPS people :-) ) on it. You might even
want to check in on it. The MIPS arch is actually quite nice. It has
generally good FP performance, a large pool of general use registers, and many
other really convenient attributes. You can join the list by sending a
mail to [email protected] with
subscribe linux-mips [email protected]
in the body.
Matthew Fredrickson