[Simh] VAX vectors

[Eric Smith]

That's amazing stuff.  I've tinkered around building simple CPUs from
TTL chips (74F series) and what you are talking about is no small
feat.

You guys that were part of the VAX hardware implementation are incredible.

I'm going to have to fiddle with a little VAX assembly just to check it out ..

I do have a real 3900 ..


> On Jul 9, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>
>> On 2015-07-09 20:26, Eric Smith wrote:
>> Would anyone mind posting a short assembly snippet of a VAX vector
>> instruction used in context?
>>
>> The only complex instruction I've ever used is the Z-80's "LDIR".
>
> Even plain old VAX instructions can be way more complex than LDIR. :-)
> There are instructions for polynomial expansion, case instructions, move translated strings, and I can't even remember what else...
>
>    Johnny
>
>>
>>> On Jul 9, 2015, at 12:16 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> In article <559E9CCA.5050701 at supnik.org>,
>>>    Bob Supnik <bob at supnik.org> writes:
>>>
>>>> Vectors were all the rage at the time (late 80s) because of the success
>>>> of the so-called "minisupers" like Convex and Alliant. It was just a
>>>> flash in the pan, of course; with the end of the Cold War in the early
>>>> 90s, funding for HPTC dried up for a decade, and all the minisuper and
>>>> VLIW companies died out.
>>>
>>> It may have been considered a "flash in the pan" as far as DEC was
>>> concerned, but it certainly had a lasting presence on computing.  The
>>> simd extensions added to x86 (MMX, SSE, etc.) and other CPU
>>> architectures are testimony to the importance of vector oriented
>>> processing.
>>> --
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