Having read all the interesting replies to my call for help over using matcher arrows, switchon et al in sectioned POP-11 code, my previous queries over trying to get the mouse functions to return a continuous stream of coordinates for <move> events, and the refreshing conversation regarding X-windows and death; I find myself moved to make the following remarks:
I used to program embedded systems in assembly language. The code was easy to write efficiently, and usually worked first time. To debug it was easy because there was no one else's compiler or operating system to screw things up. All the errors were mine (with one exception) so very easy to find and correct. The exception being once when I tried programming a system where the hardware designer had forgotten to allow for a wait state on a rather over convoluted piece of memory page address decodin
Interrupts worked nicely when programming directly to the chips' registers, and were never lost because I could ensure that the correct ones were enabled at the right times. This also made multitasking a joy.
I was always certain of the data types and scopes, because I allocated the stack, heap and registers myself. And pointers were easy to understand when they had their own set of address registers reserved for them.
Maths was fast and safe because such things as divide by zero conditions were all caught by a routine check on the floating point unit's registers and stack.
Best of all; I could design and build my own hardware if I wanted!
My colleague Alistair has said that I could have developed my image analysis and multivariate analysis system faster and more efficiently if I had used Z80 machine code rather than poplog.
He is probably right (except that I might have had a lot of paging to do with the Z80 address range).
Helen.
PS: Death also occurs with version 14.0 under sunview if you have a lot of windows open. (confirmed by others at University of Plymouth)
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