[OT] Sane Architectures

[OT] Sane Architectures

[Adam Schrotenboer]

Are there any architectures that are simple (sane) to implement sftw on? 
The i386 is plagued by it's 16-bit (arguably its 8 or even 4 bit) past. 
The HP-PARISC has its brokenness, PPC isn't that great either from what 
I've heard. And the list goes on.

Now I will I admit that I am likely wrong, and can expect some flamage 
for this. This is intended as a curiousity about something decent.

This can include architectures like the IA64 & the upcoming x86-64. Just 
looking for something with lots of GPR's, sane MM support, etc.

Takers

(Borrowing asbestos suit from my uncle)

Re: [OT] Sane Architectures

[Adam Schrotenboer]

Mark Hahn wrote:

>> Are there any architectures that are simple (sane) to implement sftw on? 
> 
> 
> sftw?  software?  yes: portable C/C++ is a fine platform.

Not really the platform, but the architecture, from a C/C++ compiler and 
kernel/asm/lowlevel lang development standpoint

> 
>> The i386 is plagued by it's 16-bit (arguably its 8 or even 4 bit) past. 
> 
> 
> I wonder what you mean by that.  it's ia32's accumulator-based
> architecture, and stack-based FPU that "plague" it, neither of which
> has anything to do with bitness.  or are you actually talking about
> instruction encoding?

the limited number of registers (3 bits allocated, IIRC) which limits 
the number to 8 minus CS,DS,IP; meaning only 5 GPRs, the requirement of 
an (antiquated) BIOS (design), 16-bit bootstrap

> 
>> This can include architectures like the IA64 & the upcoming x86-64. Just 
>> looking for something with lots of GPR's, sane MM support, etc.
> 
If not lots of GPRs, but at least enough to be able to allocate sanely.

> 
> alpha?  mips?

Yes, I just didn't feel like listing all arch's. Plus, (ducks) the MIPS 
is no longer supported by Windoze, and I rarely see any discussion on lk 
about this arch, and I forgot about Alpha for a minute.

I admit that I likely look like an idiot right now, and I am not 
intending to insult anyone, just curious about this.

Re: [OT] Sane Architectures

[Matthew Fredrickson]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 06:07:56PM -0500, Adam Schrotenboer wrote:
> > alpha?  mips?
> 
> Yes, I just didn't feel like listing all arch's. Plus, (ducks) the MIPS 
> is no longer supported by Windoze, and I rarely see any discussion on lk 
> about this arch, and I forgot about Alpha for a minute.

Mostly because there is an entirely seperate mailing list for MIPS issues.
You'll find a quite active list that is so prestegious<g> there are guys
that work the MIPS Technologies (The MIPS people :-) ) on it.  You might even
want to check in on it.  The MIPS arch is actually quite nice.  It has
generally good FP performance, a large pool of general use registers, and many
other really convenient attributes.  You can join the list by sending a
mail to majordomo@oss.sgi.com with 

subscribe linux-mips your@email.address

in the body.

Matthew Fredrickson