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A comment on Does a compiler use all x86 instructions? (2010). Parent comment

Re:Does a compiler use all x86 instructions? (2010) by atgreen on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @05:23PM (#12355357)
"What is the minimum number of instructions a compiler could make use of to get everything done that it needs?"

I didn't go for the absolute minimum, but I did aim for useful and reasonable minimum with the ggx[1] ISA (now called moxie[1]) by defining the ISA incrementally and only adding instructions used by GCC.

The approach I took is described here: [1] https://github.com/atgreen/ggx

[2] http://moxielogic.org/

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Re:Does a compiler use all x86 instructions? (2010) by Animats on Thursday August 25, 2016 @03:11AM (#12357346)
The absolute minimum is one: "subtract, store, and branch if negative". This is not a useful way to design a CPU.
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