The biggest thing to watch for in PDP8 code is
recursion as you
need a software stack and handler to preserve data/addresses.
Not really needed. The Z-machine implementation itself is more or less
an abstract CPU, and does not really need to do any recursion.
However, the Z-machine games themself can do recursion. But as a stack
for this purpose is a part of the requirement of the Z-machine itself,
it will just work, if you implement the Z-machine.
The DECmates had the 6120 and that implemented
IOTs to create
a address and data stack( hardware can be built to do that in
any omnibus 8). The unique PDP-8 IO made doing things like that
more common than would be guessed.
Right. But on an Omnibus machine, the easy way would be to instead
have a small subroutine that push/pop on the stack, instead of having
to built new hardware.
Johnny,
As a PDP-8 owner building hardware is fun as well. I know bits are
easier to move than solder.
One comment, the PDP-8 is a very odd machine relative to most micros.
It always takes me a bit
to shift gears to code for the PDP-8 and when I do I find its a
remarkably efficient machine.
The other CPU thats has that same effect on me is the RCA 1802.
Allison