Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:48:57 +0000
From: Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>
To: John Bradford <john@grabjohn.com>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: transmeta cpu code question
Message-ID: <20031121084857.GA10343@mail.shareable.org>
References: <20031120020218.GJ3748@schottelius.org> <200311201210.04780.ben@jeeves.bpa.nu> <20031120083827.GL3748@schottelius.org> <bpitsu$732$1@cesium.transmeta.com> <20031120232532.GA8229@mail.shareable.org> <200311210834.hAL8YOKw000394@81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk>
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John Bradford wrote:
> > > It's also not faster in any meaningful way, since the dynamic
> > > translator does optimistic optimization.
> > 
> > Statically compiled code for the Crusoe chips may not be faster.
> > (Arguably statically compiled code for _any_ CPU is not the best
> > strategy for fast code).
> > 
> > But if someone is able to write better code morphing software than
> > Transmeta, that would be faster :)
> 
> The idea of a CMS which only implemented the subset of X86
> instructions that gcc actually uses was discussed on the list a few
> months ago, but unsuprisingly it never progressed beyond the thought
> experiment stage.

What would be the point in that?  Surely the CMS overhead for decoding
the rarely used x86 instructions is negligable, precisely because of
their rarity?

-- Jamie
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