Brad Parker wrote:
Don Y wrote:
The code in the gasoline pump up the corner was
written in
assembly language (unfortunately... it was the perfect
application to move to a HLL but... :< ).
depends on the pump. and the box inside the office which monitors all
the pumps and reports (via the internet) on the tank gauges runs linux
:-)
Exactly. And the code in that application is likely to be revised.
The code in your microwave oven, isn't!
Thankfully,
most HLL's make bit-banging really difficult.
i disagree. i've managed (with others) to get C to be so close to asm
that asm wasn't worth it.
Great! Here are 256 bytes of ram. Design and implement
a LORAN-C position plotter in C. It has to process data in real
time (i.e. maybe 1.5 updates per second), run on a *3* MHz CPU
and you have 10KB for TEXT.
And, that's a "bountiful" work environment!
I envy you the clients that give you that much leeway.
When I am done, a client usually wants to know how to trim
even MORE out of the design (I'm looking at a $20 design
now that needs to be a $15 design... and the list of added
functions is several pages long! Hmmm, I wonder how much
I can save by taking the FOILS off the board?? Or, the leads
off the resistors?? :<)
and bit banging in lisp is really nice.
so, ok, BASIC is a pain.
Doing decimal arithmetic in C sucks. As does trying to pack
8 bools to a byte (and access them efficiently), etc. Loss
of the carry is probably the biggest single pisser in most HLLs.
<shrug> Horses for courses...
--don