6 Jan
2016
6 Jan
'16
5:04 a.m.
On Tuesday, 5 January 2016 at 21:35:47 +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote:
On 2016-01-05 18:43, Ronald
Natalie<ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
Thanks for the (omitted) explanation. At first sight, the instruction
almost seems to make sense for functions with a variable number of
parameters, but of course there are simpler ways to do it.
I wonder if this is a case of "it sounded like a good idea at the
time" (when the instruction set was being designed), and it took a
while for people to realize that it wasn't of any use.
I recall a similar issue with the Siemens 306, their first stack-based
machine, round about 1975. They had function call and return
instructions which manipulated the stack pointer, but it seemed that
nobody used them: they didn't work. From memory, the call instruction
incremented the stack pointer and stored PC. The return call
instruction decemented the stack pointer and loaded PC--from the wrong
location.
I never used the 306 myself, but I often wondered if they modified one
of the instructions to DTRT.
Greg
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Just never figured out how to make good use of the MARK instruction on the PDP-11.
Not surprising. As others noted, few ever did. And apparently none
responding actually do either.
It *is* a stupid instruction in many ways. And it's not for multiple
returns either.
It's an odd way of handling stack cleanup without a frame pointer.