Re: [colorforth] new color

[Mark Slicker <maslicke@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 5 Jun 2005, Ray St. Marie wrote:

> Thanks Mark, I'm better for this. I wish I new the fundementals of asm
> programming but I never learned them. I was not aware that the word
> called returned to the next word in the calling word. This is why I've
> stuck with jumptables, rather than arrays, because I truely was
> unaware of the way things work. If you have a trusted referance,
> please recommend.

To me this is second nature now, but I think the reference manuals are 
generally pretty good if you have in mind something you want to acomplish 
with a particular machine, or some particular code you want to 
understand. Try to understand the different aspects of the kernel as it 
is defined in pentium assembler, or try to understand how the Forth 
virtual machine is implemented in terms of pentium instructions[1].

The fundementals of a computer can be quite simple, but in this case of 
the pentium details are quite complex. I showed an example of 'call', 
because to actually say how 'call' works on the pentium would take several 
pages, as can be seen in the reference manual. This must be very 
overwhelming to someone unfamiler with the machines operation. However, if 
you must know the exact effect on the state of machine from interpreting 
an instruction on a pentium, then the instruction set reference manual is 
the authoritative reference.


[1] http://www.colorforth.com/forth.html



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