SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing

From: jeff.kaneko_at_juno.com <(jeff.kaneko_at_juno.com)>
Date: Fri Aug 17 22:14:54 2001

On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 23:23:05 +0100 (BST) ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) writes:
>> The assembly languages I like are ones where the instructions and
> addressing modes are 'orthogonal'. That is to say that any
> instruction can use any addressing mode, and any registers. Like a
PDP11 or a
> P800, or to a lesser extent the VAX.

That was the cool thing about the NS-32000's-- it was designed to be
*very* orthogonal. I find it very sucky that good design is frequently
hampered by crappy marketing.

> The ones I dislike are the ones with all sorts of special cases (the
> destination operand must be in this register unless it's this mode,
> etc).

Well, after having had to program one for a while, the Z-80 definitely
fits into this category. I strongly suspect that parts from that era
had these design aspects (e.g. orthogonality) limited by their die size.


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Received on Fri Aug 17 2001 - 22:14:54 BST

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