Proposed Assembler Commands

A sophisticated algorithm, or just the rudimentary shift and subtract algorithm, but tightly coded?

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

You can program SPRINT to emulate just about any kind of editor, from Wordstar to EMACS and everything in between.

The SPRINT engine uses 32-bit addressing, so the file size is limited only by disk space. I put the swap file in a 30 meg ramdisk, so it's plenty fast enough. It can open 26 files simultaneously, but I rarely hit this limit.

I wrote my editor to automatically detect all the common file types: ASM, C, Pascal, ascii, HTML, etc. So when I press a function key, it accomplishes the same task regardless of the type file I'm editing. This is very convenient.

It means I don't have to switch editors for different types of files, and I don't need to memorize a bunch of contradictory commands, each with their own quirks depending on the programmer's philosphy.

For example, after a copy and paste, where do you put the cursor - at the start or the end of the string? Actually, it depends on what you are doing, so I added a function to switch the cursor location. So I can have it either way:)

And whenever some new requirement pops up, I can quickly add or change a command to make the editor do anything I need. This is impossible with closed-source programs, so I don't think I will ever need any of the Microsoft bloatware that everyone complains about.

If you have had any experience writing your own editor, you will find it very difficult to use a "store-bought" one with canned commands that may not do what you need.

Mike Monett

Heh - very good. Thanks - I added them to the list.

Mike Monett

No, the PDP-8 was RISC. The 1802 was MISC, a Moronic Instruction Set Computer.

"when stupidity will serve as an explaination you need look no further" I think applies quite well to the 1802. Any programmer using one would have given up half of the 16 registers to have those transistors used for making instuctions that were more useful.

In article , John Larkin wrote: [... 1802 ..]

PDP-8: CLR ; Make the accumulator zero TAD A ; Make it the first value TAD B ; Add in the second STC ; Store and clear accumulator

Less transistors than a 1802 (I'd bet) and 4 times less instructions. The folks at DEC obviously studied the question of getting the most out of every transistor.

In article , keith wrote: [...]

Yes, I think you are right. They may have been SOS ones. I know RCA made them for some purpose way be then. They cost like the devil.

I think I should go look for my 64Bit/32Bit = 32,32Bit divide code for the

Now *that* is truly funny! I suppose opposite pedants repel.

John

Do three pedants define a plain obtuse triangle?

John

In article , Spehro Pefhany wrote: [... me ..]

At its core was the usual shift and subtract/add method. The method is sometimes called "Booth's method". It avoids the cost of having to do a compare and then conditionally a subtract. You just go ahead and subtract. If the subtract borrows, from then on you add in each loop until you get a carry. I did this by having two copies of the main loop that go jumped between when you swithc from adding to subtracting and back.

On the way in, the numbers were examined. Leading and trailing zero bytes on the values allowed it to shorten up the loops. For cases that must return zero results, the code just jumped to a routine that copied the numerator into the remainder and zeros to the result.

You forgot the most important one of all

BOC Branch On Conundrum

That way Spock couldn't tie up all of your computers resources just by telling it to calculate PI to the last decimal place.

I read in sci.electronics.design that James Beck wrote (in ) about 'Proposed Assembler Commands', on Mon, 2 May 2005:

That's not a conundrum. "Verify 'This statement is false.'" is a conundrum.

Not the 6502, I still have many opcodes memorized from my KIM-1 days. I'm a lot less familiar with the 6800, but I did write some code for it and don't recall that instruction on it either.

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I read in sci.electronics.design that John Larkin wrote (in ) about 'Proposed Assembler Commands', on Mon, 2 May 2005:

Law of Nature, that. Furthermore, pedants occupy an N-dimensional universe, where N is equal to the number of pedants. Ergo, all pedants are orthogonal.

I read in sci.electronics.design that John Larkin wrote (in ) about 'Proposed Assembler Commands', on Mon, 2 May 2005:

No. Being all orthogonal, they define the surface of an octant of a sphere; a triangle with three right angles. (Think Lat and Long of three points, 0,0; 90,0 and 0,90.)

The *last* thing I want to do is program an editor. COnfiguring one is bad enough. I don't much like making hammers and straightening nails either. I've been using MED on Windows, and VE (though I don't like it) on

Ah, you're too kind.

Commonly recognized by you? It was not a "bitch" to program, though that has nothing to do with your professed ignorance of the subject.

It is noted that you still haven't answered the question.

Sure, but you gotta promise to hold up your corner. ;-)

Yep, I think my cousin was on the RCA Voyager CPU team. It's been a

• Voyager turns a bunch of hits.