Pick assembly, was Re: XT 5160

Cameron wrote... I could pull up some of my old code for you if you want. Pick Assembler is quite difficult. Not because of the instruction set (although the instruction set is only 1/2 the issue), but because there was no protection among modes, and all the conventions were completely undocumented. You could read the assembler manual cover to cover and understand it thoroughly, and still only write code that was pretty much guaranteed to crash the machine every run. In addition, the instruction set was created before the hardware was even selected. As a result, the instruction set is very highly tied in to the data formats on disk. So unless you understand the internal formats and structures used for data storage, again - the assembler would seem meaningless - or, well, odd at the least. That all being said though, it was the most enjoyable instruction set I ever worked with. Since it was so thoroughly undocumented, even in the released manuals, there weren't a ton of people that knew it well. That's why folks like me worked on contract for several of the Pick licensees developing the OS. Too hard to find and hire enough people in-house that knew it. But once the lightbulb goes off in your head when you get the whole picture, it's an incredibly neat environment. Jay West