Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!iscuva!jimc From: jimc@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Cathey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Why do Macs have ROMs? Keywords: Macs, ROMs Message-ID: <1711@iscuva.ISCS.COM> Date: 5 Jul 88 20:02:56 GMT References: <453@etive.ed.ac.uk> <9095@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> Organization: ISC Systems Corporation, Spokane, WA Lines: 18 In article <9095@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Earle R. Horton) writes: > ROM code can be smaller, since it doesn't have to be >position-independent. I don't know how much this feature is used in >the Mac, it might not even be used at all. In fact, PIC is smaller/faster on the 68000 than non-PIC (for common references like JMP, JSR and LEA -- jump tables would be slowed). On the other hand, absolute variables in the first 32K are faster than register-relative variables. +----------------+ ! II CCCCCC ! Jim Cathey ! II SSSSCC ! ISC Systems Corp. ! II CC ! TAF-C8; Spokane, WA 99220 ! IISSSS CC ! UUCP: uunet!iscuva!jimc ! II CCCCCC ! (509) 927-5757 +----------------+ "Yours for excruciating correctness..."