HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ian@syacus.acus.oz.au (Ian Joyner)
Subject: Re: 2Re: Info about A Serie
Organization: ACUS Australian Centre for Unisys Software, Sydney
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 07:21:17 GMT

MPA15AB!COMPSYSU@TRENGA.tredydev.unisys.com writes:

>The tagged words mean that the A Series archetecture is object oriented,
>with the hardware aware of the basic types of objects.  Thus, the hardware
>prevents improper operations on objects.  The mechanisms used for this are
>quite general.

Grady Booch in "Object-Oriented Designs with Applications" recognises
the A Series as object-oriented on p34. He says "The concept of object
had its beginnings in hardware over twenty years ago, starting with the
invention of descriptor based architectures and, later, capability
based architectures. These architectures represented a break from
the classical von Neumann architectures, and came about through attemtps
to close the gap between the high-level abstractions of programming
languages and the low-level abstractions of the machine itself. According
to its proponents the advantages of such architectures are many: better
error detection, improved execution efficiency, fewer instruction
types, simpler compilation, and reduced storage requirements. Computers
taht have an object-oriented architecure include the Burroughs B5000,
the Plessey 250, and the Cambridge CAP, SWARD, the Intel 432, Caltech's COM,
the ibm system/38, the Rational R1000, and the BiiN 40 and 60."

The Burroughs B5000 was the forerunner of the Unisys A Series. Just 30
years have passed in between. Interestingly, von Neumann got his ideas
from Eckert and Mauchly, who were the founders of Univac, which became
Sperry, which was taken over by Burroughs. The architecture got accredited
to von Neumann, not Eckert and Mauchly, as von Neumann then went to
IBM, with the ideas. In my experience all the advantages that Booch
cites are present in the A Series.

In my last post, I mentioned that A Series architecture makes the
mini/mainframe distinction a nonsense. It also makes a nonsense of
the RISC/CISC distinction. In one way, A Series are very much in the
CISC camp, with string handling instructions, etc. However, they would
be classed as a sensible CISC design. In other ways though, A Series has
some of the properties of RISC design, many of the instructions being
very sensible, and just simply acting upon the two top of stack
registers. Niklaus Wirth designed the lilith processor, which is
a bit like the A Series, but does not have descriptors. He pointed
out that we should have RISC (rational instruction set computers? I think,
but its late on Friday, and my memory has gone if someone can help
out on that one).
-- 
Ian Joyner  ACUS (Australian Centre for Unisys Software)    ian@syacus.acus.oz
"Where is the man with all the great directions?...You can't imagine it,
 how hard it is to grow, Can you imagine the order of the universe?" ABWH
Disclaimer:Opinions and comments are personal.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.unisys
From: MPA15AB!COMPSYSU@TRENGA.tredydev.unisys.com
Subject: 2Re: Info about A Serie
Organization: C-S-U Gateway
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 01:56:00 GMT
Comments: Actually-From: Randall "vive.hodie" Gellens <RANDY @ MPA15AB>

>                                 The basis of the architecture is
> a hardware stack. The stack frames a[re] referenced by a set of registers
> called D registers. There are no user accessible registers in the
> machine, the top of stack being the equivalent of registers.
> The other interesting part of the architecture is that it is tag based.
> Each word in memory has an associated tag which gives the type of
> the word. Odd tags are read only words. These apply to code words, which
> cannot be modified by a user program. Tag 0 words are data, and tag
> 2 words (even), are double precision.

The tagged words mean that the A Series archetecture is object oriented,
with the hardware aware of the basic types of objects.  Thus, the hardware
prevents improper operations on objects.  The mechanisms used for this are
quite general.

Operations are done on the stack, which is both an expression stack and a
history stack.  Procedures or blocks are addressing environments, which
exist as regions on the stack (most recently activated or entered on top).


The hardware can tell from the tag if an object is executable code or
program data or a software structure.  Operators specify stack offsets
for data items (objects) as an activation and an offset within that
activation.  The D-registeres are an optimization to find the base of
an activation quickly.

Historically, stack machines such as the A Series have been respected by
computer science types because of their elegance and ease of implementing
recursion, rentrant code, dynamic arrays, etc., but suffered from slower
performance because of having to access items through stack indexing.  This
performance issue has traditionally been alleviated by making the operators
powerful enough that fewer are needed, thus programs as a whole run quickly.
Recently, additional performance improvements have been gained by dividing
the processor into multiple concurrant sections, some of which fetch data
ahead of the logic unit.

  =====================================================================
  = sua cuique voluptas              (everyone has his own pleasures) =
  = Randy Gellens            randy%mpa15ab@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com =
  = >>>>>>> If mail bounces, forward to rgellens@mcimail.com <<<<<<<< =
  = Opinions are personal; facts are suspect; I speak only for myself =

                          Randomly selected tag:

Lawyers' definition of an expert:  "an idiot from out of town."
From: cc971@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Stephen  C. Fitch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.unisys
Subject: FTP File xfers
Date: 8 Oct 1992 08:44:25 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: cc971@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Stephen  C. Fitch)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Hi,

I am interested in gathering together peoples experience on
the subject of file transfer. We have a 2200/433 + DCP 40s.
This hardware runs DDN1100, CMS1100 7r2, along with the
rest of CD5. What I would like to do is improve the efficiency
of our FTP (TCP/IP) file transfers and therefore reduce the
time to transfer our multi-megabyte files. The file transfers
take place each night, down to UNIX hosts.

Has anyone spent time optimizing CMS1100, TCP/IP, LAN Platform,
and DDN1100 for large file transfers. I would be interested in
and configuration definitions that have proven to be useful.
My own line of attack at the moment is to adjust the 2200 to
DCP channel frame size, from its current setting of 2400 bytes.

You comments will be appreciated, if you want me to be more
specific on certain points don't hesitate to ask.

Steve Fitch

Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
From: md@sco.COM (Michael Davidson)
Subject: Re: 80186 C compiler?
Reply-To: md@scodger.UUCP (Michael Davidson)
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 12:45:07 GMT
Keywords: help


In article <oestline.718926469@maui> oestline@maui.qualcomm.com (Ofer Estline) writes:
>
>	I have a C file which needs to run on a 186.
>	I would like to compile it to see how much room it
>	takes up, and hopefully run it with a SW simulator.
>	Are there any suggestions for 186 C compilers and
>	software sims?  Shareware always a plus of course.
>	--Ofer
>	BTW, there aren't any 80186 based ibm pc's, are there?


There were one or two 80186 based machines a long time ago, but
you don't need one.  You can run 80186 code on a 286, 386 or 486
running in real-mode - the 80186 instruction set is is essentially
the sameas that of the 286 with the exception of the  instructions
that relate to protected mode (lmsw, smsw, lgdt, lidt etc ...)
which are not implemented on the 80186.

Any of the standard PC compilers will generate code that will run
on a 186  - if you want to generate optimal code for the 186 you may
have to lie to the compiler and ask it to generate 286 code if
it doesn't have an explicit 186 option. (although I do seem to remember
a bug in the 80186 multiply instruction which might make this unwise ...)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
From: grimaldo@tokyo.seri.philips.nl (Emilio Grimaldo)
Subject: Re: 8051-8048 poll
Organization: Philips Semiconductors, The Netherlands 
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 16:07:07 GMT

      COME ON! I HAVE ONLY GOTTEN ONE REPLY, DO SOMETHING.


--
NAME:    D. Emilio Grimaldo T.                                   _/_/_/_/
EMAIL:   grimaldo@tokyo.sce.philips.nl                        _/_/_/ 
ADDRESS: PO Box 218,BE-543,5600 MD Eindhoven,The Netherlands   _/_/_/_/ 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     * * PERSONAL OPINIONS AND THEREFORE NOT REPRESENTING MY EMPLOYER * *
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Earth's largest project is also going wrong: humanity..." -me
"To love is to smell the fragance of a soul's inner beauty..." -me
From: 00jcreidy@bsu-ucs.uucp
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
Subject: Needed: info on Cyrix 486DX chip
Date: 16 Oct 92 19:44:15 GMT

I realize that this is the INTEL newsgroup and I may get flamed, but-
does anyone have any information on the Cyrix 486DX chip?  I have read 
about the SL and the DL chip, but not the DX.  Thanks in advance.

					Chris
From: psfales@cbnewsc.cb.att.com (Peter Fales)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
Subject: Re: 8051 C compilier
Date: 9 Oct 92 03:34:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbnewsc.1992Oct9.033414.21480
Organization: AT&T

In article <1al1luINN2ie@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark) writes:
>
>I have a challenge for you.  Send me some of your C source (with documentation
>if possible), and I'll write an assembly source from it, equivalent to it,
>with about the same size as the C source.  Maybe smaller.
>
>Any C source at all will do. :)


But then all I'd have would be assembly source. :-)


(Thanks for the offer.  I'll keep your name and give you a call when my
object file gets too big to fit in the 32K EPROM.)

-- 
Peter Fales			 AT&T, Room 9C-242
N9IYJ            		 2000 N. Naperville Rd.
UUCP:	...att!ihlpb!psfales	 Naperville, IL 60566
Domain: psfales@ihlpb.ih.att.com work:	(708) 979-8031
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
From: Orakel@sarpih.no (Jens Kr. Kirkeb)
Subject: Re: == Which processor to buy - 386 or 486? ===
Organization: stfold Ingenirhyskole
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 11:45:54 GMT

In article <1992Oct16.064904.5202@tamsun.tamu.edu> goodlett@ee.tamu.edu (
Michael Goodlett) writes:

>I thought that the 486 had a built-in
>coprocessing capability.  Is this so?

Yes, it is. The 486SX however, lacks this coprosessor. 

>And if so, then why is it that the person
>selling the mother boards indicates that
>a math coprocessor is available for the
>486 and charges extra?

He either means a coprosessor for the 486SX, or a Weitek prosessor. The 
Weitek is a specialized, very fast, little supported and expensive unit. 

>What are the major differences between the
>486 and the 386 architectures to make the
>486 worth putting out a little extra for?

The 486 i almost 2x as fast at the same clock frequency, and the DX also has 
the math coprosessor.

>Also, is it really worth the extra $300
>or so to get the 486/50MHZ over the
>486/33MHZ?

No, get a 50Mhz DX2. It should run at about $100-$150 more than the -33

>The person that the system is for wants
>to do 3-D modeling and animation.  What
>processor would be better and in what
>configuration?

He definately need a 486DX or DX2 for that! Buy the fastest you can afford. 
3D and animation is a very CPU-intensive art..

Jens Kr. Kirkeb
From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
Subject: Fixed point multiplication on 386
Date: 16 Oct 92 18:58:04 GMT
Organization: Trinity College, Dublin

Does anyone know how to do fast 32-bit fixed point multiplication on a
386? The numbers involved are stored with the high 16 bits before the
decimal point and the low 16 bits after it, and signed. I wrote the
following function in C, and compiled it under Zortech C version 3, and
it ended up as about 50 machine instructions, which on my 33 MHz 386
works out as about 100,000 multiplications per second. Considering that
the Zortech single-precision floating-point libraries can get the same
machine (without floating-point hardware) to ~200 Kflops, there would
seem to be little point in using fixed point, and I can't figure out how
to shave more than a few clock cycles off the compiler's code. If
anyone knows of a faster solution, it would be much appreciated.

typedef long num;
 
num mul (num x,num y)
{
	long xh,xl,yh,yl,result;
	int sign;
 
	sign = 0;
	if (x < 0)
	{
		x = -x;
		sign = 1;
	}
	if (y < 0)
	{
		y = -y;
		sign = 1 - sign;
	}
	xh = x >> 16;
	xl = x & 0xffff;
	yh = y >> 16;
	yl = y & 0xffff;
	result = (xh*yh << 16) + (xh*yl) + (yh*xl) + (xl*yl >> 16);
	if (sign)
		return -result;
	return result;
}


--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie
From: cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us (gordon hlavenka)
Subject: Re: 8051 education
Organization: Vpnet Public Access
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1992 04:34:36 GMT

 johnm@hitwr.hauppaugeNY.NCR.COM () writes:
>looking to get some Microprocessor experience. Becaues of what
>we use at work I have chosen the 8031/32/51/52 Micro series. I
>bought a book from intel on the 8051, programming and applications with 
>experiments but it requires an SDK-51 which Intel does not support. They
>gave me the names of 2 companies that do but when I called them they 
>said that they did not. Does any one know how I might proceed in 
>educating my self.

You're really not going about this the right way.  The right way is to
contact a distributor who sells Intel parts, and talk to them.

You say "Because of what we use at work..."  This implies that you
work in electronic circuit design of some sort; let the distributor
know and he will gleefully ply you with databooks, phone numbers, and
whatever other support you may require.  Even free training seminars,
sometimes.

To get started, you'll need a cross-assembler, a couple of UV EPROM
microcontrollers, and a programmer for same.  You'd be surprised at
how little this can cost when your friendly salesperson starts
visualizing the comissions your widget will generate for him.
Motorola recently ran (perhaps is still running) a promo for one of
their small microcontrollers:  For $50 you got databooks, one EPROM
part, an emulator pod/programmer, and a cross-assembler.  $50!!!

>An emulator is out of the question.

See above.  Also,  I recently did a project on a Signetics 8051
variant, and my distributor _loaned_ me a full-speed Nohau emulator
for a month.  For free.  The project will probably generate sales of
about a thousand units, and the distributor knew this up front.  So
it's not just the big boys with million-unit sales that get this
attention...

-- 
----------------------------------------------------
Gordon S. Hlavenka           cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us
  Don't forget:  Dave Barry/Joe Walsh in November!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
From: md@deimos.ucc.umass.edu (ROBERT D STANLEY)
Subject: Intel CPU specs
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 19:51:00 GMT

Help!pHelo

     Looking for heat generated (in watts) by 486 Intel CPU - 
If anyone has information about this (it's for a heat-transfer
class project that I want to assign), please mail info to
GROSS@ECS.UMASS.EDU  

     Thanks a lot!  


Z
From: oestline@maui.qualcomm.com (Ofer Estline)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
Subject: 80186 C compiler?
Keywords: help
Date: 12 Oct 92 21:47:49 GMT
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA


	I have a C file which needs to run on a 186.
	I would like to compile it to see how much room it
	takes up, and hopefully run it with a SW simulator.
	Are there any suggestions for 186 C compilers and
	software sims?  Shareware always a plus of course.
	--Ofer
	BTW, there aren't any 80186 based ibm pc's, are there?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
From: goodlett@ee.tamu.edu (Michael Goodlett)
Subject: == Which processor to buy - 386 or 486? ===
Organization: Texas A&M University
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 06:49:04 GMT



I'm planning on buying a PC based system
and I'm curious to know a few things.

I can get a motherboard for a 386/40MHZ with
a math coprocessor for less then the
cost of a 486/33MHZ.

I've had some people tell me that the
486 is not worth it.

I thought that the 486 had a built-in
coprocessing capability.  Is this so?
And if so, then why is it that the person
selling the mother boards indicates that
a math coprocessor is available for the
486 and charges extra?

What are the major differences between the
486 and the 386 architectures to make the
486 worth putting out a little extra for?

Also, is it really worth the extra $300
or so to get the 486/50MHZ over the
486/33MHZ?

The person that the system is for wants
to do 3-D modeling and animation.  What
processor would be better and in what
configuration?

I thank you for any information
you can offer.


-- 
Mike Goodlett
-goodlett@ee.tamu.edu                 BITnet:    MAG7351@TAMRIGEL
-goodlett@eemips.tam.edu              THEnet:    RIGEL::MAG7351
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
From: mlesch@syslab.csd.uwo.ca (Mike Esch)
Subject: 'Bare-bones' 32 bit OS
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario, London
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 01:44:40 GMT

Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: 'Bare-bones' 32 bit OS
Summary: 
Followup-To: 
Distribution: world
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario, London
Keywords: 

Greetings:

We are developing a high-speed, multi-processor switch.  The
master processor is an 80386 and the network ports are slaved by
80186's (4 ports per 186).

Currently, as the product is still in it's early development
stage, we are surviving by running MS-DOS as the operating
system.  DOS simply does not suffice for the tasks we require
of the O/S; it's not fast enough, memory problems/limitations
etc.  Ideally, we would like to write a customized O/S for
the product but at the same time do not want to re-invent
the wheel.

The requirments for the O/S are very minimal -- bootstrap,
loader and rudimentary file system.  There is (or will be)
some sort of secondary storage (hard or floppy disk most
likely).  The only specification is that the O/S needs to
be as fast as possible. Questions I pose to the net, then, are:

1)  Is there a commercial 32 bit BIOS available for the
	386 architecture?

2)	Any sort of 32 bit 'stripped down' file system available?
	Even 'code snippets' at ftp sites would be helpful.

3)	Even better than 1) or 2) would be an actual 'bare-bones'
	32-bit OS as detailed above.

Any info/comments would be greatly appreciated!

Best regards,

Mike

PS Yes we have considered different Operating Systems (such as
OS/2 and Unix based systems) but have rejected them primarily
due to excessive overhead and royalty/licensing headaches.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
From: smaa@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Shaw-Chang Maa)
Subject: Questions about SIMM and VGA Card
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 03:04:22 GMT

     I plan to add more capacity to the RAM of my 386DX computer. According
to the manual, the SIMMs I should use is 1Meg*9 80ns. But when I went to the
market, I found out that there are 3 chip and 9 chip SIMMs. My question is
how to tell which chip I should use and what the difference between them is.

     My second question may sound silly. What is the difference between 1 Meg
VGA card and 256k VGA card in terms of performance?

     I hope I post in the right group. Thanks in advance.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
From: rsilvers@nynexst.com (Robert Silvers)
Subject: Re: == Which processor to buy - 386 or 486? ===
Organization: Nynex Science and Technology
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 13:43:02 GMT

In article <1992Oct16.064904.5202@tamsun.tamu.edu> goodlett@ee.tamu.edu (Michael Goodlett) writes:

>I can get a motherboard for a 386/40MHZ with
>a math coprocessor for less then the
>cost of a 486/33MHZ.

	The 486 33 is probably faster.  It runs at a lower speed so it will
place fewer demands on the motherboard, etc.  I think it can be clock-doubled
later to 66Mhz with a DX2 chip.

>I thought that the 486 had a built-in
>coprocessing capability.  Is this so?
>And if so, then why is it that the person
>selling the mother boards indicates that
>a math coprocessor is available for the
>486 and charges extra?

It has a built in one, but external ones are faster.  Not important
to me.  If you are doing 3D graphics, good floating point probably
matters.  You should look at benchmarks to find the fastest floating
point.

					--Rob.
From: jtien@venice.eng.uci.edu (Joe Tien)
Subject: Re: *rumored* P5 Heat up problems
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
Reply-To: jtien@venice.eng.uci.edu (Joe Tien)
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 15 Oct 92 22:16:21 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.134128.1054222@locus.com>, dana@locus.com (Dana H. Myers) writes:
|> In article <1biiidINNt5n@cs.widener.edu> YOUNG@tattoo.cs.widener.edu (Rob Young) writes:
|> >
|> >johna@psdcae1.gvg.tek.com (John Abt) Writes:
|> >
|> >> to me -  Intel just reported a record quarter, and the P5
|> >> seems well positioned to take over as soon as the 486 fades.
|> >
|> >Is it a matter of waiting until the 486 fades or are their other reasons?
|> >
|> >
|> >                                Rumor Central
|> >                                   PC Week
|> >                               October 8, 1992
|> >
|> > . . . 
|> >
|> >	"Fiery, yes, but not as fiery as the rumors that the real reason for
|> >	the Intel delays of the P5 was high heat and low clock speeds.  Push
|> >	the speed and the thermometer moves to thermonuclear, mused the Katt
|> >	for a submicron moment."
|> >				   Rob
|> 
|> 
|> Actually, though no one from Intel will admit this, the P5 is suffering
|> from mechanical instability due to the use of proto-matter. According
|> to an un-named source in the P5 project, "We didn't have any choice.
|> We know proto-matter is inherently unstable but it solved several
|> problems in fab".
|> 
|> So, the same problem that resulted in the destruction of the Genesis
|> planet rears its ugly head again.
|> 
|> For non-Trekkies: if you don't get this, rent Star Trek II: The Wrath
|> of Kahn and then you will.
|> 
|> -- 
|>  * Dana H. Myers KK6JQ 		| Views expressed here are	*
|>  * (310) 337-5136 		| mine and do not necessarily	*
|>  * dana@locus.com  DoD #466 	| reflect those of my employer	*
|>  * "Dammit Bones, spare me the lecture and give me the shot!"   *

What is proto-matter? And wasn't the Genesis reference from Star Trek III: The
Search for Spock?

Joe Tien
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel