Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 31 Dec 2000 19:06:10 +0100 | From | Andi Kleen <> | Subject | Re: test13-pre5 |
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On Sun, Dec 31, 2000 at 09:27:23AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > On Sun, 31 Dec 2000, Andi Kleen wrote: > > > > Sounds good. It could also be controlled by a CONFIG_SPACE_EFFICIENT for > > embedded systems, where you could trade a bit of CPU for less memory overhead > > even on systems where u8 is slow and atomicity doesn't come into play > > because it's UP anyways. > > UP has nothing to do with it. > > The alpha systems I remember this problem on were all SMP. [...]
I just checked all architecture manuals I could lay my hands on (sparcv9, ppc32, mips r4400, parisc 1.1, alpha, sh is somewhere in storage but as I remember it has it too) and they all seem to have at least store byte and mostly store half words instructions.
> > Imagine an architecture where you need to do a > > load_32() > mask-and-insert-byte > store_32()
iirc the Alpha guys found out that they couldn't drive half of the available devices without byte store, and since then nobody has repeated that mistake @)
> > I don't think it's a good diea.
I don't see it. Just define x8 to u32 on old alpha and let most other architectures be happy.
-Andi
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