Processor balance (was Re: Welcome and VME)

From: Ethan Dicks <ethan_dicks_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Fri Nov 17 07:41:08 2000

--- Neil Cherry <ncherry_at_home.net> wrote:
> > He was writing about the very early days of computer programming, when
> > every computer was unique. In these days of bloatware, there are very
> > few programmers that still practice the art of achieving the maximum
> > results from the minimum system (hardware and software). But those of
> > us that do so *still* derive "an immense intellectual satisfaction". :-)
> >
> > Eric
>
> Hey there are still those of use who have managed to write an asm prog
> for a PIC based Cheese box in less than 50 bytes!

What kind of cheese? :-)

I was a participant in an official contest a few years ago - write the
smallest useful program for the Amiga in C... My two submissions were
well under .5 KB. One reduced the WorkBench color depth from two bitplanes
to one (so that text could scroll twice as fast), the other peeked at the
processor status bits in a system structure and printed out what processor
and co-processor were installed. The asm version of that one was just over
200 bytes, the C version was under 256 bytes. The trick - no startup code
linked in (which is where argv/argc are populated) and no libraries. The
printf that was used was the tinyprintf in ROM - integer, character and
string qualifiers only.

-ethan


=====
Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to
vanish, please note my new public address: erd_at_iname.com

The original webpage address is still going away. The
permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/

See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.

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Received on Fri Nov 17 2000 - 07:41:08 GMT

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