Programmer's conundrums

[Jim Battle]

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> I recall that one test we'd use on new assembly language programmers on the
> CDC 6000 series was a routine to save the contents of all of the registers
> without using an exchange jump.  It's much harder than it appears to be at
> first.  No register assumptions like B1=1 allowed, either.
> 
> Are there any similar tasks on other architectures that try a programmer's
> mettle?
> 
> Cheers,
> Chuck

One question posed on this list not all that long ago was: what is the 
shortest program that you can run on an 8080 where the program will zero 
all memory, including itself.  or something like that.  The puzzle is 
probably equally interesting on many other cpus.

I've heard of people asking these types of questions during job 
interviews -- and I think it is an asinine way of judging someone's 
abilities.