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Old February 21st 14, 05:02 AM posted to comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,alt.windows7.general
Gene E. Bloch[_4_]
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Posts: 32
Default How many x86 instructions?

On 2/20/2014, Yousuf Khan posted:
On 20/02/2014 8:19 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
Looking briefly at http://ref.x86asm.net/ and
http://www.sandpile.org/
gives me the impression that the *isn't* a simple count of
instructions.


Yeah, I looked at some of those sites already, and that was my
impression too, that the instructions aren't easy to count. It
doesn't help that Intel and AMD have their own extensions, either.


But it goes to show why the age of compilers is well and truly upon
us, there's no human way to keep track of these machine language
instructions. Compilers just use a subset, and just repeat those
instructions over and over again.


Yousuf Khan


Maybe there are too many instructions (seriously).

But on the other hand, if I were writing video drivers (for moving
video), I'd want a specialized compiler that uses one subset of
instructions, and if I were writing heavy math software, I'd need
another subset in another specialized compiler...and so on.

None of the above is where I am these days :-)

COMMENT
I am reposting this. I sent it about 15 min ago, and it is now shown as
removed from the server. Perhaps I have offended the Usenet gods.
/COMMENT

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Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)