modern stuff

[Chuck Guzis]

On 10/26/18 6:10 AM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk wrote:

> However it was a royal PITA to code for although a 32-bit CPU, it would
> read memory 64 bits at a time (actually 128 IIRC to satisfy the cache),
> with half that 64-bit word being an instruction for the integer unit and
> half for the floating point unit, so you effectively had to build a
> floating point pipeline by hand coded instructions, so 8 (I think)
> instructions to load the pipeline, then each subsequent instruction
> would feed another value into the pipe, then another 8 at the end to
> empty it. Great for big matrix operations, rubbish for a single add of 2
> FP numbers.

My impression of the i860 was that it might have been fun for about 2
weeks for which to code assembly, but after that, you'd really start
looking hard for an HLL to do the dirty work for you.  While there's a
sense of accomplishment over looking at a page of painfully
hand-optimized code that manages to keep everything busy with no
"bubbles", you begin to wonder if there isn't a better way to spend your
life.

--Chuck