18 Jun
2026
18 Jun
'26
10:12 a.m.
On Jun 18, 2026, at 1:01 PM, The Doctor via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Jun 17, 2026, 10:56 by cctalk(a)classiccmp.org:
Right. And unavoidably so in some cases. Early startup code is an example, I remember
writing DRAM configuration code in MIPS assembler because it had to be. And similarly I
had to write a cache flush / powerfail handler in assembler because it was subject to
constraints far beyond what a compilar can handle (not to mention it needed workarounds
for undocumented prefetch pipeline bugs in the CPU in question).
paul
Speaking of academia: clearly any
"academic" who claims Assembler is dead is unqualified for the job. It may be
true that not very much application code is written in assembler. But it should be
obvious that competence in assembler is absolutely necessary in order to build a compiler
-- in particular, a compiler back-end.
It also calls into question the Operating Systems courses said academic's employers
offer. As
embarrassing (well, maybe un-sexy) as it would be to admit, a non-trivial amount of
platform
specific assembly language is written for OSes (usually for drivers, but there are other
bits of the
OS involved as well). Even for simulation environments like OSP.
--
The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510]
WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/
My code, of course, begins with 4GH.