3 Nov
2005
3 Nov
'05
5:12 p.m.
"count the 1's" was added at the request of the Atomic Energy
Commission (or proxied through them) for nuclear blast simulations.
--jc
a.carlini at ntlworld.com wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I still wonder about the utilitiy
of
the "count the 1's" instruction. I could go on...
Apparently one of the US three-letter-agencies asked
for some modifications to (IIRC) the proposed PDP-10
instruction so that it would do whatever they wanted
a tad more quickly. counting-1s was (again, IIRC) one
of those requested additions.
According to a talk I saw on the web a few years ago now,
by one of the guys in charge of P3 (or P4), people still
ask "can I have such-and-such" an instruction!
Antonio