---------------------------------------- > Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:37:18 -0800 > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Is Scheme/Lisp somehow more "fundamental" than other languages? > > Gabriel Sechan wrote: >> >> ---------------------------------------- >>> Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:25:32 -0800 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: >>> [email protected] Subject: Re: Is Scheme/Lisp somehow >>> more "fundamental" than other languages? >>> >>> Andrew Lentvorski wrote: [snip] >>>>>> Gabriel Sechan wrote: Large register stacks take a lot of >>>>>> chip space, and increase the transistor count elsewhere as >>>>>> well. When you have limited die space, you can't have >>>>>> everything. These days cache is more of an issue than >>>>>> registers, but in the old days the registers were the big >>>>>> transistor count users. Hence the 6 register intel >>>>>> architecture. >>>>> Just one of the reasons I loathe the intel architecture. >>>> Um, I thought that x86_64 had finally broken out of this? Am I >>>> wrong? >>> Yes, you are wrong. Gabe is also wrong. The x386 has 8 general >>> purpose registers, not six [1]. The AMD64 architecture has 16 >>> general purpose registers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64 >>> for general info. In addition to the general purpose registers, the >>> x86/x86-64 family also has numerous special purpose registers which >>> make programming less onerous. Or maybe more so depending on your >>> abilities. Few people have to work at that low a level. >>> >> eax, ebx, ecx, edx, esi, edi. Maybe you can call ebp a general >> purpose register, although its always used as frame. Esp is *not* a >> general purpose register, its the stack pointer. Fuck with that at >> very high risk. You can stretch it to 7, not 8. Wikipedia is wrong. > > And you apparently don't know how to read a a spec sheet. I referenced > the actual technical manual for the AMD386DX microprocessor. It states > directly that those registers are general purpose. It's not their fault > that your software is borked. > Only if you want to completely redefine the meaning of "general purpose". A dedicated stack register is *not* general purpose.
Gabe _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts! Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
