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Re: Registers..

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On 8/25/15 1:19 PM, Mux wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 3:20:38 PM UTC-7, Mark Wills wrote:
>> I'm currently of the opinion that register machines are superior to stack machines simply due to the fact that certain stack-shuffling sequences can be optimised away by a compiler compiling for a register machine whereas a swap is a swap on a stack machine. Therefore, on the face of it,  a register based machine has the potential to be faster. There may be other factors that I have not taken into account. This is not my area of expertise at all!
>
> Thanks for the comment, although I wasn't really trying to start a comparison between stack machines and register based machines. In fact, this has been put to rest when superscalar architectures came out.
>
> That said, stack machines DO have the ability to make up for their lack of performance by just stamping a LOT of them out on a single die and interconnecting them. The GA144 is a great example of that although somewhat botched in execution.
>
> Anyway, my question was whether or not you're treading into register machine territory by adding registers to the otherwise 'pure' stack machine architecture, which is, that everything uses the stack, including memory operations. The introduction of one or more registers seems to imply a shift from the core stack machine philosophy.
>
> Just thinking out loud.. :-)

Most of the Forth processors have had one or two registers. For example 
(from Greenarrays.com): "Each F18A contains 128 words of memory
(up to 512 instructions) plus 20 words of stacks and registers; no 
memory bottlenecks. 18-bit registers are S and T, the top two elements 
of the data stack; R, the top element of the return stack; and A, a 
read/write register. Address register B has 9 bits, and the
program counter P has 10."

Cheers,
Elizabeth

-- 
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Elizabeth D. Rather   (US & Canada)   800-55-FORTH
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5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045
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Registers.. Mux <Yvo.Zoer@gmail.com> - 2015-08-25 13:35 -0700
  Registers.. Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-08-25 15:20 -0700
    Re: Registers.. Mux <Yvo.Zoer@gmail.com> - 2015-08-25 16:19 -0700
      Re: Registers.. "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-08-25 14:54 -1000
      Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-26 00:37 -0400
      Re: Registers.. Mat <dambere@web.de> - 2015-08-26 02:35 -0700
      Re: Registers.. hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-08-26 10:24 -0700
        Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-26 23:56 -0400
    Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-26 00:35 -0400
  Re: Registers.. "Rod Pemberton" <boo@fasdfrewar.cdm> - 2015-08-25 22:32 -0400
    Re: Registers.. Mux <Yvo.Zoer@gmail.com> - 2015-08-25 19:58 -0700
      Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-26 00:43 -0400
  Re: Registers.. anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-08-26 08:06 +0000
    Re: Registers.. Mux <Yvo.Zoer@gmail.com> - 2015-08-26 07:36 -0700
  Re: Registers.. Mat <dambere@web.de> - 2015-08-26 02:07 -0700
    Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-26 09:58 -0400
      Re: Registers.. Mat <dambere@web.de> - 2015-08-26 13:50 -0700
        Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-27 00:13 -0400
          Re: Registers.. Mat <dambere@web.de> - 2015-08-29 02:30 -0700
            Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-29 09:29 -0400
              Re: Registers.. Mat <dambere@web.de> - 2015-08-29 12:50 -0700
                Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-30 11:13 -0400
                Re: Registers.. Mat <dambere@web.de> - 2015-08-30 09:19 -0700
                Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-30 15:44 -0400
                Re: Registers.. hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-08-30 14:06 -0700
                Re: Registers.. Greg <abiforth@gmail.com> - 2015-08-30 21:07 -0700
                Re: Registers.. Mat <dambere@web.de> - 2015-08-31 01:51 -0700
                Re: Registers.. "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-09-01 09:23 +0100
                Re: Registers.. Mat <dambere@web.de> - 2015-08-30 10:08 -0700
                Re: Registers.. rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-08-30 16:01 -0400

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