For us, yes. We pay most of our software based on MSU usage. My boss says that one MSU reduction will save us $13,000/yr. Is this huge? To us, yes. We must constantly fight the management belief that Windows is "better! Cheaper! faster!" If some company could do a conversion with a 1 year ROI, they would go full blast without any other consideration being looked at. On Apr 16, 2013 5:56 PM, "Scott Ford" <scott_j_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ed, > > I want to ask a question, in this day/age and processing power is it > really worth > being concerned about Assembler instructions speed ? Unless there is some > application that is very time sensitive, that I understand > > > Regards, > > Scott J Ford > Software Engineer > http://www.identityforge.com/ > > > > ________________________________ > From: Ed Jaffe <edja...@phoenixsoftware.com> > To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 6:13 PM > Subject: Re: Millicode Instructions > > > On 4/16/2013 12:43 PM, Gibney, Dave wrote: > > I don't get to work at this level often, but I am always interested. > > How can Millicode be faster than the equivalent using the hardware > > instructions? As I understand Millicode, that is really all it is > > (using the hardware instructions) plus any overhead in context > > switching to the Millicode "environment". For the MVC/MVCL option, I > > can imagine a macro which generates an MVC loop, or unroll the loop > > into a sequence of MVC, or generate the MVCL depending on several > > criteria. I currently don't have the knowledge to determine the > > criteria and I would expect the criteria to change over time > > Some millicode instructions will outperform their PoOp-code counterparts > because millicode has access to hardware features not available to > ordinary code. For example, MVCL(E) has the ability to move data under > certain conditions without loading it into cache. (You can't do that > with looping MVC.) Millicode routines also have access to the MVCX > instruction which performs a variable-length MVC -- something ordinary > programs cannot do without using the EXecute instruction. > > Furthermore, a millicode instruction is perceived by the architecture as > a single instruction. This allows millicode to do things that cannot be > simulated in ordinary code. For example, it would be impossible to write > a simulation of the PLO instruction. > > -- > Edward E Jaffe > Phoenix Software International, Inc > 831 Parkview Drive North > El Segundo, CA 90245 > http://www.phoenixsoftware.com/ >
