Yes, I understand all that. In fact I did electronics before I ever picked up computers, yet alone programming (following in my Grandfather's footsteps as I've come to understand now).
We are getting a bit off-topic now, but it was about 10 years ago now that I actually realised companies still made tubes and they were used in high quality amps. After having been taught in school that they were antiquated and completely replaced by transistors, it was quite a revelation! -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Allen E. Elwood Sent: Thursday, 3 March 2011 5:05 PM To: 'U2 Users List' Subject: Re: [U2] Is this worth rewriting? Ok, just to be clear, there is a difference between an interpreted instruction and a hard wired machine code instruction. An actual BRANCH ON NOTEQUAL operand ANALOG *circuit* must be etched in silicon at the flip-flop level before it's a machine code instruction. So like, not impossible. But here's the cool point. Digital devices, are implemented with capacitors, transistors, resistors. Analog devices. I dunno, just makes me laugh every time I think about the fact that at the lowest level there is really no such thing as digital because electricity is analog .... lol Speaking of analog (how's that for a segue?), all guitar pros still use tube amps. I make tube amps! It's so different to work with 500 volt tubes and transformers than programming. [shameless brag] Here's an upcoming starlet using one of the Hiwatt DR504 clone amps I built by hand for her playing with Earl Slick (David Bowie's guitarist after Stevie Ray got himself fired) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTx1Pi1_o4c [/shameless brag] -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dan McGrath Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 9:10 PM To: U2 Users List Subject: Re: [U2] Is this worth rewriting? Yes, in the real instruction that gets send down those long multi-stage pipe lines in our multi-core CPUs :) They take the same amount of clock cycles to compare if a 32bit/64 bit value is equal, or not equal. When values are compared it merely sets one of the many flags in the CPU. This binary flag is used to determine if it was equal or not, the only difference in the machine code is whether you perform an action if the flag is true or perform an action if the flag is false. This is as true in RISC processors as it is in CISC. But yes, this sort of optimisation is rarely needed. In fact, if you were to ever write the code in C/C++ the compiler would automatically optimise the machine code far better than most mere mortals could :) For some reason, you mentioning your teacher made me think of The Story of Mel: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html <snip> _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list [email protected] http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ ########################################################################################### The information transmitted in this message and attachments (if any) is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed. The message may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. The intended recipient of this e-mail may only use, reproduce, disclose or distribute the information contained in this e-mail and any attached files with the permission of IMB. ########################################################################################### _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list [email protected] http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
