another bizarre architecture
in [Embedded]
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From: John Larkin on 1 Feb 2007 21:03 On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:09:00 -0500, Spehro Pefhany <speffSNIP(a)interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote: >On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:32:53 -0800, the renowned John Larkin ><jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > >>On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:41:03 GMT, Vladimir Vassilevsky >><antispam_bogus(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > >>>Hardware is getting more and more disgracefull. Look at the 50-page >>>erratas for the modern CPUs. >> >>That's mostly firmware bugs! My MC68332's have no bugs that I know of. > ><snip> > >The MC68332 is about old enough to vote, innit? > > Yup. Freescale would like to kill it, but there are enough users that they can't. I've been told they are still soliciting new business for it. One of these days we'll get around to Coldfire, I guess. It's a nice machine, a pleasure to program in assembly. It works like a hammer works, no drama, just pounds nails. The 64-bit math ops (gone from Coldfire) are especially nice in my business, doing stuff like timing 1000 seconds to 1 ps resolution. John
From: John Larkin on 1 Feb 2007 21:08 On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:48:31 GMT, Vladimir Vassilevsky <antispam_bogus(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > > >John Larkin wrote: > >> Oh, I forgot to ask: >> >> in response to my... >> >>>Software is buggy >>>because of miserable programming methodologies and practices. >> >> >> you replied >> >> "No. It is that way because everybody is happy and just likes it to be >> that way." >> >> So my question is, have you personally accepted the "we're happy with >> lots of bugs" position? > >Personally I still have the artistic feelings about the development, and >I am striving to make the design neat and elegant. >However I realize that in many cases the business perspective is quite >different if not completely opposite. > >But it does not matter what do we think. Money talks, and the example of >Microsoft and Walmart is a clear indication of what people really want. WalMart is what people want; Windows is what they are forced to pay for and put up with. Luckily, I report to no-one, so I'm going to write clean, documented, commented, bug-free code, just because I want to. >BTW, you complained about the FPGA design software. Are you willing to >pay 10 times more for it if they fix the major bugs? Since it's free, certainly! But you'd think that Xilinx would realize that we'd buy more FPGAs if we could get more designs done. John
From: Didi on 1 Feb 2007 21:22 > ...The 64-bit math ops (gone from Coldfire) ... More than that is gone. I considered the Coldfire about 6-7 years ago (the version 4 was just coming out but already good to be being considered) and decided against it - emulating my CPU32 code would have been less practical than it turned out to be on the PPC. Most notably because of the missing addressing modes - you only have those from the 68000, all the 68020 modes are gone. I spent 4 registers on the PPC to emulate these etc., I have told you the rest of the story. But if you don't intend to use old sources on the CF you'll be fine, I guess. Sure the PPC family of embedded products of Freescale (and others...) is worth a look, though - the most consistent architecture I know of is the PPC. Dimiter ------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff Transgalactic Instruments http://www.tgi-sci.com ------------------------------------------------------ On Feb 2, 4:03 am, John Larkin <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:09:00 -0500, Spehro Pefhany > > > > <speffS...(a)interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote: > >On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:32:53 -0800, the renowned John Larkin > ><jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > > >>On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:41:03 GMT, Vladimir Vassilevsky > >><antispam_bo...(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > > >>>Hardware is getting more and more disgracefull. Look at the 50-page > >>>erratas for the modern CPUs. > > >>That's mostly firmware bugs! My MC68332's have no bugs that I know of. > > ><snip> > > >The MC68332 is about old enough to vote, innit? > > Yup. Freescale would like to kill it, but there are enough users that > they can't. I've been told they are still soliciting new business for > it. One of these days we'll get around to Coldfire, I guess. > > It's a nice machine, a pleasure to program in assembly. It works like > a hammer works, no drama, just pounds nails. The 64-bit math ops (gone > from Coldfire) are especially nice in my business, doing stuff like > timing 1000 seconds to 1 ps resolution. > > John
From: werty on 1 Feb 2007 22:42 > Face it: the current state of software is an unholy mess, and the > paradigm doesn't work. Windows source code looks like this. > > John- Hide quoted text - --------------------------------------------------------------- Yea , so what , do you mean you DONT want to make a paycheck from it ? If it was easy and clear , like Forth , there'd be no $$ , no opportunity to drag it out for weeks , the application would be done in hours , and that would end the carreers of millions of "hangers-on" to the computer free-ride . Fortunately for the public , it will happen shortly and suddenly . no human will speak the word Software in the future . Using smarter and faster compression , computers will have tiny Op Sys and huge data bases and answer all questions . and cost $25 .
From: John Larkin on 1 Feb 2007 22:55
On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 22:50:35 +0000, John Devereux <jdREMOVE(a)THISdevereux.me.uk> wrote: >John Larkin <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes: > >> On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:10:42 +0000, John Devereux >> <jdREMOVE(a)THISdevereux.me.uk> wrote: >> >>> >>>You do realise that this is an implementation of the C standard >>>library? The behaviour of the functions is spelled out, in detail, in >>>the C standard, and any number of C reference books and online >>>references. >> >> Suppose it turns out to have a bug. There's no indication of a >> revision level, so every time you want to use this implementation you >> have to (or certainly should) add your own comments as to where you >> found it and when. And if a bug is ever found, will the one on the web >> just change, so that you'd have to check every character against the >> old one to see if anything has changed? > >You use a version control system. A library like this would be >maintained and released as a unit, i.e. there will be an overall >version number like e.g libc 2.1. > >Using a version control system it is easy to see exactly what has >changed between revisions, anywhere in the library. This saves having >to examine each file individually to see if its version number has >changed. If your vc system tells you that two subroutine sources differ, what do you do? It certainly can't tell you *why* they differ, or how they might behave differently. For that, you must either read the comments and revision notes (lots of luck finding them!) or compare the code character-by-character and try to figure out what's going on. Or just use the latest one, on the assumption that any bugs aren't your fault. Now, what do you do when 12 versions differ? >If you really want to you could use the version control system to >automatically insert a comment with the file version number, but I >think this is not used much these days. At least I don't; it clutters >up the file. Yes, comments are nasty things. John |