Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 20:08:49 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: talk (fwd) Message-ID: <199805191808.UAA17299@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de>
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In list.freebsd-hackers Mike wrote:
> [...]
> I've always heard (I have no motorola experience, yet) that motorola asm
> blows x86 away when it comes to efficiency. A friend I have develops for
> Be and he's always ranting about it. :)
He's right. The x86 has 4 general-purpose registers, each of
them 16 bits (they were extended to 32 bits in the 80386) and
4 address registers of the same size. And there are certain
restrictions on their usage, e.g. you can only use the CX
register as counter in the "loop" instruction etc.
On the other hand, the Motorola 68k has 8 general-purpose
registers of 32 bits and 8 address registers (also 32 bits).
There is no restriction on their use, except that the 8th
address regsiter is the default stack pointer.
I programmed on both architectures in assembler, and I have to
say that the 68k is definitely easier to program, and the
higher number of registers allows for efficient programming.
Maybe it was the biggest mistake ever made in computer history
when IBM selected the 8088 for their first PC back in 1979.
(Or was it 1978? Don't know, I probably couldn't even spell
the word "Computer" correctly back then.) If they used the
68000 -- which was already available at that time -- we would
have less problems today, I guess.
I was very pleased when I got to know that 3Com's PalmPilot
uses an 68328 ("DragonBall"), which is an 68000 plus a few
extensions.
>
> > [It still amazes me that there are so many better options than Intel and
> > no-one ever uses them, writing ARM is a damn sight easier than 80x86
>
> Likewise, it always amazes me that there are so many better options than
> M$ and very few utilize them. Personally, I'm always interested in new
> ideas/ports/processes. Anything to work toward a 'bigger/badder/better'
> future. ;)
Same here. :-)
Regards
Oliver
--
Oliver Fromme, Leibnizstr. 18-61, 38678 Clausthal, Germany
(Info: finger userinfo:olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de)
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