Re: [OT] Sane Architectures

Adam Schrotenboer
2001-03-26T23:09:52Z

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.