🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <id.OS0V.0DI@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:

   In article <1992Nov13.200222.23955@sal.wisc.edu> alan@sal.wisc.edu (Alan Watson) writes:
   > >Quite a few modern microprocessors have hardware to do 32 x 32 bit 
   > >multiplies and 64 bit / 32 bit divides.  I know of no HLL that will
   > >allow me to write code to access these instructions. For example,
   > >suppose I want to compute A*B/C exactly, where A,B, C are 32 bit
   > >ints and C > A and C > B.  How do I do this in a HLL ?

   In Forth: A B C */ (this is actually 16 * 16 / 16 -> 16, but equivalent
		       operations exist for 32-bit operators in modern Forths)

   > This is a compiler issue, not a language issue; many compilers provide
   > access to system-specific operations.

   No, it's a language issue. Forth, as implemented on an 8-bit CPU with no
   hardware multiplier, provides this routine.

I somehow don't follow your reasoning. If _some_ FORTH implementations
provide a particular machine specific feature, then it's "in the
language", while if _some_ C implementations provide the same feature
then it's merely "in specific implementations"? I think you are
measuring with different yardsticks here.

Modern implementations of C provide sophisticated "asm" interfaces,
just like modern implementations of FORTH provide machine-specific
operators.

					Thomas.