From: Jim Thomas Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Bases [was Re: Ages] Date: 02 Jun 2001 12:37:38 -1000 Organization: Canada France Hawai`i Telescope Lines: 44 Message-ID: References: <9f8d71$ldu$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: atlas.cfht.hawaii.edu X-Trace: news.hawaii.edu 991521459 17800 128.171.80.135 (2 Jun 2001 22:37:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@hawaii.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Jun 2001 22:37:39 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.6 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.hawaii.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82820 >>>>> "Nothead" == Jim Thomas writes: >>>>> "dave" == glass2 writes: dave> Err, these numbers are all in hexadecimal, aren't they? :*) Nothead> (That's octal of course - the official base of this Nothead> group I still claim :-) When did hex show up? Considering the "base" to be what form the instructions were shown in on an assembly listing and/or what the addresses were shown in on a "core" dump (imagine one if the system didn't/doesn't do that), we have something like: IBM 70x and 70xx scientific systems octal IBM 650 decimal (bi-quinary internally) IBM 7030 (Stretch) ? IBM 14xx/70xx business systems character/decimal IBM 360 and following (inc S/3 etc.) hex IBM AS400 ? DEC everything but the VAX octal DEC VAX, Alpha hex Atlas ? DG Nova octal DG eclipse hex ICL ? Univac 110x octal Xerox Sigma ? ? SDS 9?? ? Burroughs ? ? all micros (?) hex Was there something before the 360 that used hex? Nothead ###### Message-ID: <3B194E4D.4F15B5FF@trailing-edge.com> Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 20:36:29 -0400 From: Tim Shoppa Organization: Trailing Edge Technology X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03Gold (X11; I; OpenVMS V7.2 AlphaServer 1200 5/533 4MB) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Bases [was Re: Ages] References: <9f8d71$ldu$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.73.218.130 X-Trace: reader1.news.uu.net 991528589 10245 63.73.218.130 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!portc.blue.aol.com.MISMATCH!portc01.blue.aol.com!uunet!dca.uu.net!ash.uu.net!spool0.news.uu.net!reader1.news.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82784 Jim Thomas wrote: > all micros (?) hex It wasn't always all hex for all the micros. The 8080 instructions in particular are obviously nice and orthogonal if you write them out in octal, and indeed it is very easy to do 8080 hand-assembly if you think of the instructions in this way. While the very first 8080 opcode lists published by Intel gave octal tables, for some reason that I never understood the wider micro community instead always talked in hex, and Intel soon stopped publishing the opcode lists in octal at all. That's a damn shame, as the very orthogonal 8080 opcode set got turned into a horrible kludge with the Z80's tacked-on instructions, and soon everyone thought that the horrible Z80 mnemonics (where a "LD" mnemonic could result in the assembler issuing one, two, three, or four bytes of code) were preferred. Tim. ###### Sender: marc@hana.snafu.org Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Bases [was Re: Ages] References: <9f8d71$ldu$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <3B194E4D.4F15B5FF@trailing-edge.com> From: Marco S Hyman Message-ID: Organization: S.N.A.F.U. -- http://www.snafu.org/ Lines: 23 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.7 Date: 02 Jun 2001 20:11:36 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.174.80.154 X-Complaints-To: abuse@pacbell.net X-Trace: news.pacbell.net 991538223 64.174.80.154 (Sat, 02 Jun 2001 20:17:03 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 20:17:03 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.onemain.com!feed1.onemain.com!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!206.13.28.144!news.pacbell.net.POSTED!hana.snafu.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82780 Tim Shoppa writes: > horrible kludge with the Z80's tacked-on instructions, and soon > everyone thought that the horrible Z80 mnemonics (where a "LD" > mnemonic could result in the assembler issuing one, two, three, or > four bytes of code) were preferred. It's all in your point of view. If I'm thinking about what the hardware does I prefer the intel method. If, on the other hand, I'm trying to think about the problem I'm trying to solve then the fact that an "LD" generates one, two, three, or four bytes of code is irrelevant -- unless the problem is "how can I make this code fit in less memory". I rarely gave a damn about the generated code (other than if it was correct or not) and thus usually preferred the Zilog mnemonics. The worst, however, is the MCS 51 family. The instruction set is not orthogonal. I often went looking through the manual for an instruction that didn't exist, thinking I'd just forgotten the mnemonic. Evil chip. // marc ###### From: Steve O'Hara-Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Bases [was Re: Ages] Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 09:04:51 +0200 Organization: Wanadoo NL Lines: 24 Message-ID: <20010603090451.207648da.steveo@eircom.net> References: <9f8d71$ldu$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <3B194E4D.4F15B5FF@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p661.vcu.wanadoo.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: scavenger.euro.net 991556870 9658 194.134.201.189 (3 Jun 2001 08:27:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 08:27:50 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Sylpheed version 0.4.99cvs3 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-unknown-freebsdelf4.3) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news2.euro.net!news.euronet.nl!ams-gw.sohara.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82794 On Sat, 02 Jun 2001 20:36:29 -0400 Tim Shoppa wrote: TS> It wasn't always all hex for all the micros. The 8080 instructions TS> in particular are obviously nice and orthogonal if you write TS> them out in octal, and indeed it is very easy to do 8080 hand-assembly TS> if you think of the instructions in this way. Yes it was very clear that the designers of the 8080 thought in octal when they did that job. I always thought the 8080 was more elegant than the Z80 which was the more practical of the two - the bits tacked on were *very* handy. As many have pointed out 8 bits is too tight to do a good job, stretching a clean core wasn't *too* bad a compromise. TS> everyone thought that the horrible Z80 mnemonics (where a "LD" TS> mnemonic could result in the assembler issuing one, two, three, or TS> four bytes of code) were preferred. That was nasty though right enough. -- Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun http://www.best.com/~sohara ###### From: Steve O'Hara-Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Bases [was Re: Ages] Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 09:06:13 +0200 Organization: Wanadoo NL Lines: 12 Message-ID: <20010603090613.4036fbaa.steveo@eircom.net> References: <9f8d71$ldu$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <3B194E4D.4F15B5FF@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p661.vcu.wanadoo.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: scavenger.euro.net 991556871 9658 194.134.201.189 (3 Jun 2001 08:27:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 08:27:51 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Sylpheed version 0.4.99cvs3 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-unknown-freebsdelf4.3) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news2.euro.net!news.euronet.nl!ams-gw.sohara.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82799 On 02 Jun 2001 20:11:36 -0700 Marco S Hyman wrote: MH> code is irrelevant -- unless the problem is "how can I make this MH> code fit in less memory". IME at the time that was *always* the case :) -- Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun http://www.best.com/~sohara