EBERBERS%yubgef51@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU (12/02/90)
In article <421@lysator.liu.se> howard@lysator.liu.se (MindWalker) writes: > The reson for adopting the MC68000 inspired set (as detailed by Alonzo > in his HP28S PROCESSOR NOTES) is that HP's own set is so God-awful > ugly. It's like Basic with bit manipulation thrown in. I don't mean to > be insulting to HP, but I can't get used to the idea that those > mnemonics represent machine code. Would mister howard@lysator.liu.se write the same if his real name was known to the participants of this forum ? Statement that an instruction set is "God-awful ugly" seems a bit neurotic. Who can ever realy discuss "beauty" of instruction set? It's like discussing a "beauty" of alphabet and calling any alphabet "ugly" just because one is unfamiliar with it is quite a nonsense - unless one is neurotic. I'v been using 68000 assembler for last 4 years and do find it quite useable but not very radable. Why? First of all because I do not program in assembler because I have nothing else to to but because I have to speed up critical parts of my C programs so, for me it is very important to be able to do strait forward "translation" form C to assembler (compilers are still producing quite unreadable code). Actually, for anybody who is doing anything but most simple routines in any language it is of great importance to be able to read somebody elses code and to implement various algorithms as easy as possible. Traditional PDP-like assemblers are quite inefficient in terms of programmer's time spent to write and debug a code but we are all using them and not inventing new sets of mnemonics because we do have to communicaate ideas and solutions and there is a lot of code already written in such assemblers (although assembler code is rarely reuseable). HP made very brave and wise move long time ago making decision that new processor for new machine (HP-75) is going to have clear and readable assembler that will be adapted to humans not to machine logic as much as possible for an assembler (defined as a language with 1-1 correspodence to machine code). So, HP-Saturn has mnemonics that look similar to BASIC ant that makes them much more readable for people who "speak" more than 1 conventional programming language and much more efficient in terms of programmer's time and that is what matters in todays programming society - to make programmer as productive as possible. This might be of no importance to a casual user/programmer but knowing that source code for HP-71 64K ROM amounts to about 3000 pages of source code you can imagine that for such huge project (not to mention 256 K ROM in HP-48) it is of utmost importance to have the assembler that makes programming much easier for professionals. in article <10515@helios.TAMU.EDU> n233dk@tamuts.tamu.edu (Rick Grevelle) writers: > the one used by HP. Only now am I able to use the IDS mnemonics. Because I'd > no previous experience with machine language programing, the Mier book did ver y > little to help me; the primary reason being the IDS mnemonics it utilized. It I would realy like to know what is Mr. Grevelle's previous programming experience? Did he even tried to find IDS or have just enered first shop, bought first HP-28 "MC-programming" book and expected to become a programming gury? I do not intend to acuse anybody for not being programmer but it is annoying to read how somebody declares one set of mnemonics "superior" to the other just because he was unable to uderstand one. If Donald E. Knuth have said something like that than we might say that maybe something is wrong with one set, but having many towsends of pages written by HP and other programmers in HP-Saturn and a condemnation by somebody who have written a few pages with other set of mnemonics is really too much. After all, HP-Saturn assembler is produced by programmers and for programmers and complete firmware for 4 major handhelds have been written using it - supreme quality hanhelds - with very little amount of bugs (compere this to MS-DOS for example). So either HP-programmers are immortal genies who did job almost perfectly despite the bad assembler (but they made that assembler too) or assembler is realy good and well thought and allows programmers do their job ,more efficiently. HP made jus one, BIG mistake - didn't provide either assembly development package or documentation for HP-48. If they did we wouldn't have this mess today with do it yourself assemblers and 90% of time spent on hacking, dissasembling ant trying to squeeze a bit of information from our HP-48 machines. <<<<<<<<-----------------<<>>------------------------->>>>>>>> <<<<-- Zarko Berberski <----> ERBERS@YUBGEF51.bitnet -->>>> <<<<<<<<-----------------<<>>------------------------->>>>>>>>
bgribble@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Bill Gribble) (12/03/90)
In article <F6BFBEB483FF00034D@yubgef51> EBERBERS%yubgef51@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU writes: [lots of interesting, but highly inflammatory, comments about Alonzo Gariepy's Saturn mnemonics] > I would realy like to know what is Mr. Grevelle's previous programming >experience? Did he even tried to find IDS or have just enered first shop, >bought first HP-28 "MC-programming" book and expected to become a >programming gury? I do not intend to acuse anybody for not being >programmer but it is annoying to read how somebody declares one set of >mnemonics "superior" to the other just because he was unable to uderstand >one. Are you new to this newsgroup or do you just not pay attention to what's posted? Rick Grevelle is one of the most frequent posters of new infor- mation about HP handhelds on this group. He can speak for himself, but I want to say that most of the readers of this group *do* consider him a 'guru.' And insinuating that he's not a programmer is just ignorant. You have every right to post your opinions here, but please try to make them informed. > HP made jus one, BIG mistake - didn't provide either assembly >development package or documentation for HP-48. If they did we wouldn't >have this mess today with do it yourself assemblers and 90% of time spent >on hacking, dissasembling ant trying to squeeze a bit of information from >our HP-48 machines. Rick Grevelle himself had some interesting thoughts on this subject. I'll have to paraphrase, but I think it went something like this: programming on an HP handheld, specifically in machine language, is a sort of game. You start with the clues that the HP engineers left - the SYSEVAL command on the 28, the too-useful-to-be-a-coincidence memory scanner on the 48. Getting together with other people of the same interests, you pool research and information. You get that warm tingly feeling of discovery every now and then. It seems to me that this game of HP programming is a learning experience. If you're a *serious* programmer and don't have time for these silly games, why are you whining? There are enough low-level tools available to complete any projects you might have in mind. The 'do-it-yourself' assemblers work very nicely, thank you, and if they`re not good enough, write your own. If you're so much more serious a programmer, you shouldn't have any trouble writing one that will blow the socks off anything available, and you can keep it to yourself so that you can crank out code like a foundry puts out iron. And you'll make a bathtub full of money. I'm having fun and learning a lot by programming the 48 in machine language; it sounds like you're having a hernia. Who's better off? ><<<<<<<<-----------------<<>>------------------------->>>>>>>> ><<<<-- Zarko Berberski <----> ERBERS@YUBGEF51.bitnet -->>>> ><<<<<<<<-----------------<<>>------------------------->>>>>>>> ***************************************************************************** ** Bill Gribble Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA ** ** bgribble@jarthur.claremont.edu Never heard of it? You're stupid. ** *****************************************************************************
akcs.falco@hpcvbbs.UUCP (Andrey Dolgachev) (12/29/90)
Chill people, its just a calculator, albeit an awesome one, no need to call each other names because of mcoding it.
TDSTRONG%MTUS5.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU (04/12/91)
get tar.exe