Date   : Fri, 21 Oct 2005 12:14:36 +0100
From   : jgh@... (Jonathan Graham Harston)
Subject: Re: Adding copro support to BeebEm

Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...> wrote:
> Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
> > I've not done much on it, the documentation is tortuous, and
> > the opcode set even more so.
> 
> I take it you've found the proper CPU reference manual over on
> bitsavers.org (or elsewhere) - think it's about a 30MB download.
 
No, I've got a blue paperback manual "Series 32000 Databook" from
National Semiconductor (1985). All 508 pages of it. I'll have to
upload a piccy to add to the CoPro and manuals.
 
> I'd heard that the instruction set was supposed to be rather elegant for
> the 32016 - but admit to knowing nothing of it myself!
 
Elegant? Maybe if you think Picasso is elegant.
 
Nineteen different instruction formats, register modifiers,
register masks, offset length modifiers, variable length immediate
values, some instructions seem to keep going on forever until you
hit some special value.
 
-- 
J.G.Harston - jgh@...                - mdfs.net/User/JGH
Jet Set Willy Resources - http://mdfs.net/Software/JSW