Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ?

Message-ID	<4DCFFCD4.7000305@SPAM.comp-arch.net> (permalink)
Date	2011-05-15 09:18 -0700
From	"Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net>
Organization	comp-arch.net
Newsgroups	comp.arch
Subject	Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ?
References	(3 earlier) <rZqdnVxkBug9DlXQnZ2dnUVZ_smdnZ2d@speakeasy.net> <4DCAFE51.5000806@SPAM.comp-arch.net> <iqfdc2$73n$1@speranza.aioe.org> <4DCCA852.6010806@SPAM.comp-arch.net> <0egus6tqcmeqesqubkdp2991uu2qi0n7kv@4ax.com>

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On 5/14/2011 8:24 PM, George Neuner wrote:
> On Thu, 12 May 2011 20:41:06 -0700, "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew"
> <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net>  wrote:
>
>> I started looking for a manual that had been scanned and put up,
>> and found this:
>>
>>     http://pages.swcp.com/~mccurley/humor/i860.html
>>     Our favorite manual
>>
>>     (Intel i860 Processor Reference Manual)
>>
>>     Bullet holes courtesy of Stephen Wheat,
>>     one of the chief architects of SUNMOS.
>>     It should be noted that he now works for Intel!
>>
>> Unfortunately, can't find the manual.  Maybe I can scan it in.  If Intel
>> will permit it.
>
> I may be completely mistaken here - it's been a long while - but my
> recollection was that, modulo FP and MMU, the i860 and i960 were
> instruction set compatible.
>
> The i960 manuals and datasheets seem still to be available.  Would
> they be of any use?
>
> George

The i860 and the i960  are about as instruction set incompatible as can be.

The i960 was a RISC (actually, it may have predated RISC).  Well 
behaved, sequential instruction semantics, although it had superscalar 
implementations that preserved such semantics.  Where it went overboard 
was with object oriented system programming extensions.  One of my 
friends was known as the expert on garbage collection in the i960 microcode.

The i860 expossed its pipeline.  Something along the lines of VLIW.  It 
had a push pipeline, e.g. some operations results would not get written 
out automatically, unless you stuffed extra elements into the pipeline 
to "push" them out.

Short:

i960: pleasant for assembly language.

i860: damnably hard for assembly language and compilers - the sort of 
processor whose manual you might shoot at in a target range in 
celebration that you no longer have to deal with it.

The i960 team in Oregon became the P6 team. (The i960 legacy movedto 
Arizona.)

The i860 in California was the philosophical heart of the attitude that 
gave us Itanium.

---

This is not to say that there were not neat ideas in the i860, 
particularly in Les Kohn's later, cancelled, versions.

Thread

What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? whygee <yg@yg.yg> - 2011-05-08 23:01 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? kym@kymhorsell.com - 2011-05-09 04:07 +0000
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? whygee <yg@yg.yg> - 2011-05-09 08:45 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? "robertwessel2@yahoo.com" <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2011-05-08 23:58 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? whygee <yg@yg.yg> - 2011-05-09 09:02 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2011-05-09 09:43 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? MitchAlsup <MitchAlsup@aol.com> - 2011-05-09 09:38 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? "robertwessel2@yahoo.com" <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2011-05-09 11:14 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2011-05-09 14:51 -0400
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? torbenm@diku.dk (Torben Ægidius Mogensen) - 2011-05-09 16:31 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? whygee <yg@yg.yg> - 2011-05-09 18:16 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? mac <acolvin@efunct.com> - 2011-05-09 17:27 +0000
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? whygee <yg@yg.yg> - 2011-05-09 19:38 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) - 2011-05-09 20:23 -0500
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? whygee <yg@yg.yg> - 2011-05-10 03:04 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net> - 2011-05-11 14:23 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? whygee <yg@yg.yg> - 2011-05-12 02:45 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net> - 2011-05-12 20:41 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2011-05-14 23:24 -0400
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net> - 2011-05-15 09:18 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2011-05-15 10:00 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net> - 2011-05-15 12:06 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net> - 2011-05-15 12:12 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2011-05-15 16:16 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? nmm1@cam.ac.uk - 2011-05-15 20:58 +0100
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2011-05-15 15:59 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? nmm1@cam.ac.uk - 2011-05-16 08:58 +0100
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? "Andy \"Krazy\" Glew" <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net> - 2011-05-16 07:43 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? Terje Mathisen <"terje.mathisen at tmsw.no"> - 2011-05-16 22:46 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? timcaffrey@aol.com (Tim McCaffrey) - 2011-05-19 16:13 +0000
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2011-05-15 20:33 -0400
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? whygee <yg@yg.yg> - 2011-05-11 05:53 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? whygee <yg@yg.yg> - 2011-05-11 07:10 +0200
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2011-07-04 09:39 -0700
Re: What are the various alternate uses for the PC's LSB ? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2011-07-04 10:23 -0700

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