From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.129.84.2 with SMTP id i2mr25837840ywb.120.1481579205879; Mon, 12 Dec 2016 13:46:45 -0800 (PST) X-Received: by 10.157.18.211 with SMTP id g77mr6130546otg.14.1481579205841; Mon, 12 Dec 2016 13:46:45 -0800 (PST) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!1.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!2.us.feeder.erje.net!newspeer1.nac.net!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!p16no5869133qta.1!news-out.google.com!m27ni12663qtf.1!nntp.google.com!n6no5872492qtd.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 13:46:45 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=67.0.242.189; posting-account=lJ3JNwoAAAAQfH3VV9vttJLkThaxtTfC NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.0.242.189 References: User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <3a630f30-ef30-4e58-b898-e8ee1f463e6a@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Hardware Design supporting Ada From: Shark8 Injection-Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 21:46:45 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:32768 Date: 2016-12-12T13:46:45-08:00 List-Id: On Sunday, December 11, 2016 at 2:15:18 PM UTC-7, Niklas Holsti wrote: >=20 > Did they mention the Nokia MPS-10: >=20 > http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3D989799&dl=3DACM&coll=3DDL&CFID=3D8749= 29794&CFTOKEN=3D55213355 >=20 > http://computer-programming-forum.com/44-ada/596b4e2f57763ce6.htm No, but thank you for the information there! It looks really interesting -- the MPS-10 along w/ the R-1000 makes it seem= like while a considerable effort, HW (and OS) designed for (and programmed= in) Ada is a good choice for reliability and maintainability. > > In addition to this, I've been doing some work looking into > > balanced-ternary computers ... > > Further, [balanced] ternary provides some interesting properties; > > if,for example, we define {1, 0, -1} as {greater-than, equal, > > less-than} respectively then we can have a JUMP instruction > > that takes this single Trit comparison result and three offsets > > and take care of ALL the JUMP combinations in binary instruction > > -sets with one instruction. >=20 > Then you will be able to implement the original FORTRAN "arithmetic=20 > IF-statement" very efficiently, it being of the form >=20 > IF (expr) 100, 200, 300 >=20 > which would pass control to the label 100 if the expression in the=20 > parenthesis is negative, to 200 if it is zero, and to 300 if it is positi= ve. >=20 > However, I don't see how such an instruction would help Ada, in particula= r. That's true, it /would/ have a more natural mapping to FORTRAN in this case= . But, OTOH, Ada's always been of the mindset that the compiler should hand= le little optimizations like that. (On a semi-related note, the implementat= ion of ternary search-trees would be simple.) You, and others here, might be interested in this manual on the iAPX 432's = proposed extensions to Ada: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/intel/iAPX_432/172283-001_Reference_= Manual_for_the_Intel_432_Extensions_to_Ada_Dec81.pdf These extensions mapped to and "conveniently expose[s] the concepts and cap= abilities of the iAPX 432."