rcpieter@info.win.tue.nl (Tiggr) (10/15/90)
I would like to propose the creation of comp.sys.arm. NAME comp.sys.arm - unmoderated discussion of ARM related topics. WHY A USENET GROUP On EUNET the unmoderated group eunet.micro.acorn exists for the discussion of Acorn micros. The majority of articles discuss topics related to the Archimedes, currently the only ARM based computer. Recent (within the last month) postings in comp.misc, comp.arch and comp.os.minix show that there are Archimedes users in Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. They do not get the eunet.micro.acorn newsgroup and thus don't have a forum to ask questions about or discuss their machine. WHY THIS NAME An alternative name could be comp.sys.archimedes (along the lines of comp.sys.mac, comp.sys.ibm.pc), but the ARM is used in more things than just the Archimedes, for instance as embedded controller, or in a graphics card for the Mac. So it seems the name comp.sys.arm is better suited than comp.sys.archimedes [and it saves typing :-)]. The discussion in news.groups which is to follow this proposal should determine the name. WHAT ABOUT EUNET.MICRO.ACORN The group eunet.micro.acorn could be rmgroup-ed when comp.sys.arm has been created (I hope there aren't any people who do get eunet.* and none of comp.*). SCHEDULE DISCUSSION The discussion period starts today, 13 Oct 1990. VOTING If the discussion does not kill the proposal I will issue a Call For Votes on Monday, 12 Nov 1990. The voting period will start on the day the Call For Votes appears in news.announce.newsgroups. It will run for 31 days. After 21 days I will post a second call for votes and a mass acknowledgement. WAITING PERIOD There will be a five day waiting period from the day that the final results appear in news.announce.newgroups. CREATION If the voting results imply that the newsgroup comp.sys.arm (or whatever name will have been chosen) should be created I will issue the control message (and tell Gene about it). This will approximately be on 18 December 1990. DESCRIPTION OF THE ARM Very short discription: The Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) is a 32 bit general purpose load-store architecture CPU with 16 registers, 26 bit address space, coprocessor interface for 16 coprocessors and a rather orthogonal instruction set (compared to programming the 680x0 in assembly, the ARM is heaven and the 680x0 is hell, but this is just my humble opinion). It has a three deep pipeline, which breaks on taken branches. Every instruction can be conditionally executed, and instructions may or may not affect the status flags. Currently two versions exist: the ARM2 which is the basic ARM, and the ARM3 which is an ARM2 with cache. AUTHOR Tiggr, aka Pieter Schoenmakers. Email at rcpieter@win.tue.nl. Thanks to Eric Muller who's CFD for comp.lang.modula3 I used as a template (without his consent though). DISCLAIMER I like the ARM, that's all. I have no commercial links with people making money by selling it. -- Watch this space.