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Re: New 16 bit CPU by Notch

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Brett Davis wrote:

> DCPU-16 Specification
> http://0x10c.com/doc/dcpu-16.txt
>
> from
> http://0x10c.com/
>
> Notch is the independent game developer that created Minecraft.
> http://www.minecraft.net/
>
> Here is a scientific calculator built in minecraft blocks
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgJfVRhotlQ
>
> Building a calculator out of lego like blocks is quite a feat.
>
> So what do you think of the new 16 bit CPU?
> Lack of 8 bit data support is troubling, but I like how it is
> orthogonal and simple, almost RISC like.
> He could have numbered his registers, but used 8 bit style names.
>
> Having a visible PC register is an issue.
> The Overflow register is a minor bottleneck for OoO, and likely
> a hassle for the hardware guys?
> Cycle times assume word at a time decode, but that need not be true.
> No floating point.
> I was going to say limited expansion, but you could drive a truck
> through the non-basic instructions by adding two word instructions.
>
> I assume there are some blunders made, want to point out any?

One night a few weeks ago I put together an assembler and
quick C compiler back end code generator for the DCPU-16.
It actually could be a competative embedded systems processor.

I ran some benchmarks through it and it beat several current
commercial 16 bit processors.

It is an interesting processor in many ways. As a teaching tool it
has a simple easy to understand instruction set with lots of
opportunities for code optimization.

The instruction set has evolved which has slowed down some
of the on-line development.


Walter Banks
Byte Craft Limited

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Thread

New 16 bit CPU by Notch Brett Davis <ggtgp@yahoo.com> - 2012-04-04 13:36 -0500
  Re: New 16 bit CPU by Notch MitchAlsup <MitchAlsup@aol.com> - 2012-04-05 09:00 -0700
    Re: New 16 bit CPU by Notch Brett Davis <ggtgp@yahoo.com> - 2012-04-07 02:09 -0500
  Re: New 16 bit CPU by Notch EricP <ThatWouldBeTelling@thevillage.com> - 2012-04-05 13:39 -0400
  Re: New 16 bit CPU by Notch gavin@allegro.com (Gavin Scott) - 2012-04-25 13:49 -0500
    Re: New 16 bit CPU by Notch, version 1.5 Brett Davis <ggtgp@yahoo.com> - 2012-04-27 00:12 -0500
  Re: New 16 bit CPU by Notch Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2012-05-28 18:10 -0400

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