Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!modcomp!joe
From: joe@modcomp.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: separate integer and float register
Message-ID: <6800002@modcomp>
Date: 15 Aug 88 13:40:00 GMT
References: <2724@wright.mips.COM>
Lines: 8
Nf-ID: #R:wright.mips.COM:2724:modcomp:6800002:000:349
Nf-From: modcomp.UUCP!joe    Aug 15 09:40:00 1988


>... what were the tradeoffs that went into the decision to make the
>floating point and integer registers the same?

Special floating point registers also slow down context switching, due
to the extra time needed to save/restore them.  This can be an important
factor in real-time or communication applications that have high context
switch rates.