Goto and simulating processors

[linnig@skvax1.csc.ti.com]

> billwolf@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
> From a recent article by blakemor@software.ORG.UUCP (Alex Blakemore):
> >    According to John Barnes [Programming in Ada p. 61]
> >      "The main reason concerns automatically generated programs ...
> >      [to] transliterate (by hand or machine) a program from some other
> >      language into Ada"
>    From what I've heard, as recently as October's Tri-Ada '88,
>    automatic translation is pretty well discredited as a software
>    porting technique.  

You might want to SIMULATE the execution of a microcode processor by
translating the microcode into Ada. The compiled Ada code would execute
much faster than it would if you interpreted the microcode each line at
runtime. Such simulated execution could be combined with the Ada code for
the controlling scalar processor to simulate the entire system. If the
microcode contained GOTO's, then the microcode GOTO could be translated
directly to an Ada GOTO.

Such a simulation would also be easy to port to another machine (assuming
an Ada compiler existed on that machine).


	Mike Linnig,
	Texas Instruments