frankr@inmet.UUCP (12/19/85)
What's so great about lots of registers? Cache does a better job? One general purpose register is best? 1. There are certain things that most common architectures require registers to accomplish. In general, the more registers available to accomplish a type of task (indexing, indirect reference, whatever) the better. One of the beauties of the PDP11 was the orthogonality of its register set. 2. Cache is definitely a Good Thing. In order for cache to remove the need for registers it must cache instructions and data. The M68020 , for instance, only has instruction cache on-chip. 3. ?? I simply can't think of a good reason why *one* general purpose register is a good idea. (Before you flame me consider item #1) Franklin Reynolds ihpn4!inmet!frankr