On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 12:28:31PM -0400, Camm Maguire wrote: > Are there any substantive ISA extension instruction sets available on > a subset of hppa machines which might warrant a separate build, > i.e. as in the sse and sse2 builds on i386?
We had a quick discussion about this at GCC Summit. There are various "multimedia instructions" available on PA-RISC, but we don't think GCC has been taught how to emit them. There's a 40,000 foot overview at http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechDocumentDetailPage_IDX/1,1701,959!13!244,00.html with some more detail http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechDocumentDetailPage_IDX/1,1701,959!46!244,00.html These instructions are only architected for PA 2.0 processors, but the PA7300LC also implements them. The PA7100LC does not appear to. GCC probably doesn't know anything about saturated arithmetic, so at least that feature would require hand-written assembler. I know you're a dedicated fellow, but I think even you would balk at such a task ;-) -- "Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain
