7 Sep
1998
7 Sep
'98
1:13 a.m.
I was going thru a bunch of old material and I ran
across this IBM
manual that I had squirrelled away from a garbage find in the early 80s
that also included a bunch of Bytes. It's a 6th edition (Mar 79) and says it
applies to Release 4 of OS/VS1, Release 3 of OS/VS2 ,Release 2 of VM/370,
DOS/VSE, and all other releases
A descrptive heading says "This manual describes the OS/VS -DOS/VSE-
VM/370 assembler language. It's a 450 page XEROXed copy.
I know ziltch about non-micros and am wondering if this is of any value
(in the intellectual sense) ?
/360, /370 ASSM is an brilliant example how simple, clear
and beautiful a (CISC) processor can be. I know now other
assembler so simple, so strikt and easy to implement (and
I'm still an Assm programmer since 20 years).
With exraordinary simple thinking one can easy develop all
stages of an execution pipline for this opcode. Staight
forward. Did I say develop ? There is noting to develop -
reading the opcodes is like reading a step by step instruction
to build the CPU.
Ok, maybe I'm overemphasing, but I love this structure.
I did almost any microprocessor (from 1802 to 9900 and Z80)
in the past 20 years, and some of the bigger architectures,
but none equals the /370.
So, if you want to have fun, take the OP-Code table and
solve the puzzle - or just keep the manual for 'real world'
tasks, since this Assm is still valid for IBM (and compatible)
Mainframes. I bet your taxes are calculated on one of 'em.
Gruss
H.
P.S.:
I did several interpreters for micros - first on the KIM :).
P.P.S.:
Shure there have been some realy genieous extensions to the
/370 architecture (like maybe the stack engine in the SIEMENS
X calss CPUs), beautiful and powerfull themself, but they are
still don't met the elegance of the basic instruction set.
P.P.P.S.:
And of course there are several good Microprcessors - but again:
not as elegant, simple and beautifull than the /370.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK