Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c++:2101 comp.lang.c:14347 comp.lang.forth:660 comp.lang.fortran:1523 comp.lang.misc:2179 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tank!uwvax!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!teknowledge-vaxc!sri-unix!garth!tom From: tom@garth.UUCP (Tom Granvold) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.forth,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Assembly or .... Summary: Assembly does have its uses. Keywords: assembly language Message-ID: <2025@garth.UUCP> Date: 28 Nov 88 17:23:22 GMT References: <1388@aucs.UUCP> <729@convex.UUCP> <1961@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Reply-To: tom@garth.UUCP (Tom Granvold) Followup-To: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.forth,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.misc Distribution: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.forth,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.misc Organization: INTERGRAPH (APD) -- Palo Alto, CA Lines: 27 - I must jump in on this discussion with my two cents worth. There are definitly cases where assembly language is not only appropriate, but nesscary! I write diagnostics that test the hardware in computer systems which makes me a member of very small minorty of programers. While reasonable memory tests can be written in languages such as C or Forth, many other tests require assembly language. For example in the newer CPU's, especially RISC chips, it is becomming common to have pipelining of instruction execution and register scoreboarding. In order to reasonably test these features, one must be able to specify exactly whe sequence of instructions that are to be executed. The second need for assembly is in real time control. In my previous job we were using a Z80 to control several stepper motors. The critical timing restrictions accured in the interrupt routines. While there were high level languages available for the Z80 none, that we were aware of, were optimizing compilers. Therefore we were able to produce much faster code in assembler. This was a case where every machine cycle was of importance. The most importent comment in the source code was the number of machine cycles each instruction took. Yes we could have used a newer faster CPU that has optimizing complier available for it, but Z80's are cheap! Thomas Granvold