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--- code_coloring [2026/01/31 08:41] – created appledog
+++ code_coloring [2026/01/31 08:52] (current) – removed appledog
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-= Code Coloring
-Welcome to my article on Code Coloring, the totally new thing I, Appledog, invented on January 31st, 2006 at 4:35pm while chatting on discord.
-== How did you invent such a wonderful thing?
-So basically I was thinking about how to optimize the hot path and cam.k1 said, "How does the 65816 get away with only having 3 registers (A,X,Y) while it's competitor the m68k has 16"
-In the ensuing discussion, I said you don't need that many registers. Then when hypothesizing how many you need, I came to the idea of 8 registers. Then without even realizing what I said, I said
-<blockquote>
-Appledog — 4:23 PM
-You don't really need 16 registers
-Actually it would be a lot simpler to have standard registers.. like an ADD instruction automatically adds A and B and puts the result in C
-In that sense, I am thinking, instead of registers, you could design a meta-CPU with meta execution-contexts.
-Such as ABXY or ABCXYZ; just 4 or 6 contexts, maybe with a stack and flags (8 total).. Hmm!
-calc84maniac — 4:28 PM
-simpler CPU design for sure, but compiler designers will hate it
-Appledog — 4:28 PM
-And operations require values to be in certain registers. Ok so given that variable assignments are faster than array accesses you could probably set up a mini cache or stack with actual variables.
-Well the thing is, I think programmers have gotten a bit lazy
-Everyone expects certain kinds of architecture
-If you could guarantee that operations used certain registers you could eliminate at least two IFS and a memory op per cycle in an emulator
-You'd double the speed
-So you have four execution contexts
-And four versions of LOAD  for each register-- thats 32 LOADs, 32 STOREs, 32 ADDs, 32 SUB, etc
-Its a lot of opcodes but it would be way faster. All you are really doing is unrolling the register encoding on an opcode
-It actually might make things clerarer and easier to pipeline because you can execute code in different contexts out of order, with guaranteed non-interference
-Like automatically enabling the cpu to multithread your code
-omg did you hear what I just said
-Appledog — 4:36 PM
-This is amazing. Its code coloring!
-I invented code coloring!
-</blockquote>