Re: To get things started...

[Nick Ing-Simmons]

Bart Lateur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>But what if you choose wrong, forgat a really important one, and this
>instruction gets a multibyte representation? We're stuck with it
>forever...?
>
>I have had some thoughts on "dynamic opcodes", where the meaning of
>opcode bytes needn't be fixed, but can be dynamically assigned,
>depending on how often they occur (for example). A bit like how a
>Huffman compressor may choose shorter representations for the most
>occurring byte patterns.

This is just like HW processor opcodes.  x86 has lasted so well
because the initial guess at the short/common opcodes was not too bad.
But the escape bytes are getting out of hand now...

-- 
Nick Ing-Simmons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Via, but not speaking for: Texas Instruments Ltd.