[comp.sys.atari.st] LINE F

kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) (12/02/89)

rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) writes:
| I know what you mean by "Line F", but what's the "compression" refer to re:
| ST ROMs?  (Usually I'm only this dense on Mondays & national holidays...)

The line F compression I refer to is a method we used in ST ROM which
basically replaces common operations with line F instructions.  The
line F handler is able, by decoding the $Fxxx instruction, to determine
what operation to perform.  The handler then dispatches the exception
to the appropriate OS routine.

-- 
   |||   Ken Badertscher  (ames!atari!kbad)
   |||   Atari R&D System Software Engine
  / | \  #include <disclaimer>

saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) (12/03/89)

In article <1841@atari.UUCP> kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) writes:
>rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) writes:
>| I know what you mean by "Line F", but what's the "compression" refer to re:
>| ST ROMs?  (Usually I'm only this dense on Mondays & national holidays...)
>
>The line F compression I refer to is a method we used in ST ROM which
>basically replaces common operations with line F instructions.  The
>line F handler is able, by decoding the $Fxxx instruction, to determine
>what operation to perform.  The handler then dispatches the exception
>to the appropriate OS routine.

This brings up the question of what the ROM code does instead.  Have all the
little line F routines been made into subroutines, with more-or-less ordinary
subroutine linkages (I don't know the exact count, but there are A LOT of
line F routines)?  Are the routines invoked by subroutine calls to a 
dispatcher (a la GEMDOS)?  Has the code been brought inline?  

Of COURSE this is just idle curiosity, but if the answer is 'brought inline',
I'll expect a noticeable speedup in STE performance.
                                        Steve J.

avgroeni@cs.ruu.nl (Annius Groenink) (06/06/91)

  Are there possibilities to change parts of the AES (for
example to change the window manager- make windows faster,
give them a nicer (X-like) look..)? How (uniformly) is AES
programmed on STs/TTs? Are there (of course, undocumented)'
fixed functions for the internal line F calls, and are they
still used in the TT/ 68030-68882 ?
   (I guess this is all a large dream, for I've never seen
any programs do this without replacing the ENTIRE AES, but
if someone has any hints, I'd be most grateful to hear them.)

-- 
________________________________________________________
    Annius Groenink|undergraduate student
Laan van Borgele 24|maths/computer science at the
   7415 DJ Deventer|University of Utrecht, Holland.