Talk:Stack machine

message: It would be nice to have some code examples. --Crazy2k 15:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples 

message: I have tagged this article to merge with pushdown automaton. The two are formally the same. I am creating a similar article called queue machine which would list both theoretical and practical concerns, as I believe that is the main difference between the two articles.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamuelRiv (talk • contribs) 03:30, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The present text of this article makes it clear that the two are not the same, so merging is a bad idea. Rp (talk) 15:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree with Rp. This article discusses the stack machine concept (computational model) in computer science whereas the pushdown automation article discusses the pushdown finite automation concept, which may use a stack (which is just an array with LIFO-based access). The two articles discuss completely different concepts. No merge should be done. -- Burningmace 00:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

text: The merge is not really a good idea. The term "stack machine" was specifically used to describe a particular sort of widely implemented CPU architecture. A "pushdown automaton" is a formal concept, that does not carry the same connotations. I will remove the tag. --pbannister (talk) 11:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  merge with pushdown automaton 

message: I have gotten the impression that many, if not all, stack processors tend to have short interrupt latencies.  The Intersil RTX2010 e.g. has a an interrupt latency of only four processor cycles.  Can the same be said for other stack processor architectures? Johan G (talk) 16:32, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Added RTX2010 as example of fast interrupt response due to minimal processor state. DBSand (talk) 05:35, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interrupt latency 

message: Someone added this phrase to the section heading in the article this morning.  My understanding is that that sort of thing doesn't belong in the article, so I've removed it.  However, the editor is correct: that example is wrong; it confuses pushdown automata with a stack machine.  A 'stack machine' is a general purpose computer that has a stack AND random-access memory, as discussed in "merge with pushdown automaton". 
In fact, it may be better if that section was removed, or replaced with one explaining why a "stack machine" has nothing to do with pushdown automaton.  152.23.116.140 (talk) 15:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  (CONSIDER REVISION, NOT QUITE RIGHT) 

message: The SECD Stack Environment Code Dump, machine is a device used to implement the lispkit language, a lisp dialect similar to scheme used by Peter Henderson in his book Functional Programming, prentice hall, 1980. 
There is an article in wikipedia about SECD, It should remain as a separate entry. I suggest just to mention it. 
Maybe just the first paragraph in this comment is enough.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.140.221.202 (talk) 07:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I added it to "see also" --Mathnerd314159 (talk) 16:44, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should we mention the SECD machine here? 

message: This article now covers three different topics with no overlap.
The sections on automata theory stack machines and practical stack machines should become separate stand-alone articles, with a disambiguation page.
The section on computers using stack frames should probably have its details moved into the existing stack frame article, and leave only a note here within the practical stack machine article, explaining that nearly all machines use stack frames, and most of them are considered register machines, not stack machines.
The existing article on register machines only covers automata theory, with nothing about practical real machines.  It would be good to create a similar article about practical register machines.
DBSand (talk) 05:01, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The subject of automata theory stack machines and the languages they can parse is covered in existing articles pushdown automaton and deterministic pushdown automaton; the example here should be merged into one of those articles. DBSand (talk) 15:18, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Done DBSand (talk) 22:38, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separate articles for automata theory stack machines and practical stack machines 

message: This article, in many parts, reads like it is a slab of text taken out of a compiler or computer organization textbook. The article goes too deep (tons of irrelevant detail). There is an assumption the reader will understand many technical terms, with no attempt at definition or linkage to other wikipedia articles. The entire section on call stacks should jsut be a link to the call stack wikipedia article (which is very well written). This article, however, is just an extremely poorly written article, overall.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.170.90.2 (talk) 07:06, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Density of content, assumption reader will understand terms 

message: Hello. I was just reading at the following :
Stack machines have much smaller instructions than the other styles of machines.   But operand loads are separate and so stack code requires roughly twice as many instructions as the equivalent code for register machines.  The total code size (in bytes) is still less for stack machines.
''
This is vague and unsourced. What kind of stack machine and register machines are compared ? A stack machine can be :
* With one stack (data and return addresses is explicit) or two stacks (separate data and return stacks)
* With or without an accumulator (usually without)
* With or without flags (such as carry flag, usually without)
A register machine can be :
* With how many registers (8, 16, 32, ...)
* Has "fake" registers such as Program Counter, or a Zero register
* Instructions with 3, 2 or 1 explicit registers
* Which addressing modes are available (to simulate a stack frame for instance) ?
And in both cases : Are instructions encoded with practical memory alignment in mind (i.e. 1 byte / multiple bytes per instructions), or designed for maximum density (common instructions uses less bits and rare instructions use more bits) ?
All those factors impact greatly on code density, and claiming which one is generally the winner is not something that can be easily done. If such a study has already been made, then a serious source should be provided that, The total code size is still less for stack machines.
Otherwise this paragraph is void and should be removed, but as usual, people will repeat it around and say It must be true because Wikipedia says so128.179.157.83 (talk) 09:21, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comparison of stack and register machines 

message: It would be good to include a little on the history of the stack machine.
When was the stack mechanism explicitly supported by CPU instruction sets.
Who came up with this idea.
Some credit Friedrich L. Bauer with this invention (together with Klaus Samelson he apparently patented it in 1957);
also see Jürgen Schmidhuber's page on Friedrich L. Bauer.
Wstomv (talk) 12:23, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of the Stack Machine 

message: The lists near the bottom of the article (Commercial Stack Machines and Virtual Stack Machines) should include a date and/or be put in approximate historical order. 50.206.176.154 (talk) 21:44, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stack Machine Lists 

message: It is my understanding that some of the subordinate processors (that do not run their own OS like a GPU but only execute instructions pushed into them from a master processor) are essentially stack machines. They have a data stack that can be accessed by the master, which can push and pop, and that can be accessed by the subordinate's ALU. A separate instruction queue is filled by the master at the tail and executed by the subordinate from the head.
I recommend that such a subordinate processor be included in the description of the different kinds of stack machines. 50.206.176.154 (talk) 03:32, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aren't GPUs Stack Machines?