If you've ever looked at the VAX instruction set,...
...and lived to tell the tale....
Yeah. The polynomial evaluation instruction on early Vaxen was slower and larger than DIY evaluation, as I recall. (This may have been microcode version and/or VAX model dependent). It made me laugh many a time.
( But then, I actually liked the nasty complexity of early DCL quoting, so,... )
For a long time I thought the early RISC proponents just had a sour grapes attitude because they weren't smart enough to write a compiler that could make use of the VAX instruction set. :)
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-20 09:02 pm (UTC)...and lived to tell the tale....
Yeah. The polynomial evaluation instruction on early Vaxen was slower and larger than DIY evaluation, as I recall. (This may have been microcode version and/or VAX model dependent). It made me laugh many a time.
( But then, I actually liked the nasty complexity of early DCL quoting, so,... )
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-20 09:46 pm (UTC)For a long time I thought the early RISC proponents just had a sour grapes attitude because they weren't smart enough to write a compiler that could make use of the VAX instruction set. :)