🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <24898@ames.arc.nasa.gov> lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster) writes:
>Aside: You don't often find documents like the famous
>"Principles of Operation".  I will avoid making specific comments, but some
>microprocessor manufacturers seem to think that an assembler manual is an
>architectural definition...

And then, of course, there are the companies whose architectural definitions
consist of "here's how to unpack the box and boot it with our software, which
it runs real well, yup yup, so you don't need to know what's inside, and
in fact we refuse to tell you".

I've got three major machines in my shop:  a pdp11/44, a Sun 3/180, and an
Iris 4D/60T.  If I want to know why the 44 isn't doing what it should, I
read the Processor Handbook, or the Maintenance Manual, or if worst comes
to worst, the schematics.  Try getting *any* of those documents for the
other two...
-- 
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu