🚀 go-pugleaf

andrew@megadata.mega.oz.au (Andrew McRae) writes:
>If it looks like microcode, smells like microcode ... Why call it PALcode?

Because it doesn't even vaguely resemble microcode.

- PALcode is fetched from the I-cache, not from ROM.
- PALcode is decoded by the normal decoder, as opposed to to microcode,
  which is often a raw mask over a processor's internal control lines.
- Microcode is usually in charge of detailed sequencing/timing of e.g. 
  register writebacks. PALcode has no concept of this, except for
  some implementation-specific rules like "if you set this TLB control
  register, then the TLB mode will change one clock later".
-- 
Don		D.C.Lindsay	Carnegie Mellon Computer Science