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Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 18:07:56 -0500
From: Adam Schrotenboer <ajschrotenboer@lycosmail.com>
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To: Mark Hahn <hahn@coffee.psychology.mcmaster.ca>,
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Subject: Re: [OT] Sane Architectures
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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.

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