On Friday, June 27, 2003, at 06:20 AM, Ken Norris wrote:
I don't know what SIMD is. Can you explain?
Single-Instruction -- Multiple-Data
A single machine instruction that applies to several groups of data items in concert. This need not be at the same time, the processor might quickly iterate through these.
We have this as a high-level language feature in Transcript. For example, + can work on arrays as well as numbers. This does not mean that this is translated to an SIMD instruction in the engine implementation. However, the feel is the same.
Maybe it would possible for the engine to keep arrays that are the result of arithmetic in a special form, just as it keeps the results of simple arithmetic in a special form. That special form might be optimized for speed and maybe take advantage of SIMD instructions. However, I suspect only a few of us use arithmetic on arrays and then only a few of that group use very large arrays.
Perhaps there are image handling and a few other areas where fancy capability might apply.
Dar Scott
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