Rockwell instruction extension

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BigDumbDinosaur
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Re: Rockwell instruction extension

Post by BigDumbDinosaur »

litwr wrote:
It would be interesting to know if this extension could help existing computers from the '80s.  I can think of only one system that could benefit: the Commodore +4.  The Commodore +4 uses a port at 1 for communicating with serial devices, such as disk drives, so the extension could provide a faster method of working with this port and potentially speed up the turbo loader.
Does anyone have any similar examples?

In the early 1990s, I did extensive development work on a terminal server powered by the 65C02.  Despite lots of bit-twiddling going on, I didn’t find the Rockwell extensions to be useful.  The primary reason was the I/O hardware (an octal UART and a PIA) was not mapped into page zero, rendering the extensions useless in that application.  I did, however, make extensive use of TRB and TSB, which tend to be more flexible—they have absolute as well as zero page addressing modes, and it’s possible to test and set/clear multiple bits in one atomic operation.  In my 65C816 code, TRB and TSB see extensive application, especially in manipulating ephemeral workspace on the stack.
x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!
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