Extremely CISC instructions
Diane Bruce
db at db.net
Tue Aug 24 07:50:22 CDT 2021
On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 11:38:42AM -0400, Paul Koning wrote:
>
>
> > On Aug 24, 2021, at 6:34 AM, Diane Bruce <db at db.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 09:09:55PM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Aug 23, 2021, at 8:38 PM, Tom Stepleton via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >>>
...
> > faster if one just did them with the 'normal' instruction set.
>
> Not too surprising given that the instruction worked 4 bits at a time while a reasonable software implementation goes 8 bits at a time.
>
> The more general point is one I learned on the Moto 68040. The task was to write a fast packet forwarding module (for an FDDI -> Ethernet switch, wihch ended up being the DECswitch 900). When I studied the instruction timings I realized the "RISC subset" of the 68040 instruction set and addressing modes runs in one or two cycles per instruction, while all the other cases take a great deal more. So I wrote it in the RISC subset, and ended up processing 60k packets per second, in a 25 MHz processor.
>
Not at all surpised.
That was later done formally in the ColdFire processor. They removed all the
CISCy instructions replacing them with macros and left the RISCy instruction
set.
> paul
>
>
>
Diane
--
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