Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Walter Banks Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: New 16 bit CPU by Notch Date: Mon, 28 May 2012 18:10:10 -0400 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 52 Message-ID: <4FC3F7C2.B90E3E80@bytecraft.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: pGS0fNXAhxhOo0gW9bSLoQ.user.speranza.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en]C-CCK-MCD NSCPCD479 (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Xref: csiph.com comp.arch:6809 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