🚀 go-pugleaf

The new HP "RISC" machine gets much of its high level language
performance benefits due to the fact it has 32 general purpose
registers.  The HLL compilers partition the usage of these registers
and use them for both local variables as well as parameter
passing (unless all else fails).  When all else fails the optimizer
decides what data should be put on the stack. If I recall correctly
the conventions allow for up to 16 parameters passed to another
subroutine via registers.  In my opinion much of the performance
benefits of this architecture come from the fact that the machine
has many general purpose registers and the compilers sound like
they do excellent optimization.

I have no direct experience with these machines, all the above
info comes from HP Journal articles filtered through my imperfect
memory.  By the way, the Unix based "RISC" machine has been shipping
for a month and seems to be selling well.

Dave Neff
hpfcla!hpvcla!neff

Disclaimer: This is not an ad.