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From: drew@wolf.UUCP (Drew Dean)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: C machine
Message-ID: <592@wolf.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Dec-87 20:56:10 EST
Article-I.D.: wolf.592
Posted: Sun Dec  6 20:56:10 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Dec-87 06:04:54 EST
References: <759@auscso.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Systems'n'Software San Diego, CA
Lines: 32
Keywords: C, Lilith (sp?), In Progress?
Summary: I think it exists


I apologize, as a non - vi hacker, I can't get this message to contain a copy 
of the one it refers to, if someone could send me a little description of vi I'd
be very grateful .....
Anyways, the Lilith (you did spell it correctly) was / is a machine built by Dr.
Nicklaus Wirth to run Modula-2 as its SOLE language.  That is the OS, compiler, debugger, and everything else are written in Modula.  The machine has a 16 bit
architecture, and has 4 AMD 2900 series bit slice chips.  (That is 2900, NOT
29000, work on the Lilith started in the late 1970's.)  The 4 board proccesor
has 256 instructions, all chosen to help in the writing of the Modula-2 compiler.
  For example, building a stack frame on procedure entry is ONE instruction.
Due to the need to support a (at that time) hi-res display (768 by 594, mono.
and interlaced), the system uses a 64 bit wide read data bus, and a 16 bit write
data bus.  With the average instruction length ~ 10 bits, each instruction fetch
got about 6 instructions.  The Lilith was a very CISCy design (process switching
is also < 5 instructions), and was completely stack based.  All math operations
received operands on top of the stack, and pushed the result back on.  If anyone
wants further detail, send me email ....
At any rate, the Lilith was a 1979 technology 16 bit machine running at 6 Mhz.
It was blindingly fast, the 5 (yes 5) pass modula compiler was quicker that a
lot of recent things, like Microsoft C 4.0.  It had a barrel shifter for fast 
graphics, and the OS had several interesting features, and came in SOURCE code.

I remember hearing a few years ago about something called the BBN C machine, 
which did essentially the same thing for C.  Can someone supply further details
about it ?  Also, the Novix NC4000 and upcoming Buffalo processors do the same
thing for Forth.  The buffalo is is supposed to run @ 100 Mhz, and require .8
clock cycles/instruction. That's only rumor, but if it's anything close to that
it will be FAST....

Drew Dean
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