One can see why the Principles of Operation manual (PoP) was designed in its
present format...to save paper.
There is now no need to design this manual in a form that was suitable 30 years
ago.
Now that I've restarted teaching Assembler I realise that the PoP neither
serves the professional learning new instructions or techniques nor the student
learning for the first time.
The suggestions below have been compiled by myself and contacts and are not in
any priority order. I offer these in order to stimulate discussion. I know IBM
monitor this forum as I see names that I know.
IBM can join in as well.
1) Instruction descriptions
Every instruction must be individually described. No more bunching.
2) Two Manuals
---PoP1 describes formats and techniques
---PoP2 describes instructions and examples
Hyperlinks to similar instructions and examples.
3) Classification
The current classification is inadequate, ie. CVD isn't a decimal
instruction...there are many others.
If you have to classify, then here is a suggestion...
1) Boolean...AND/OR/XOR
2) Branch....BRANCH and PROGRAM
3) Compare...COMPARE and TEST
a) Binary
b) Floating point
c) Decimal
4) Conversion...CONVERT/TRANSLATE/UNPACK/EDIT/PACK
a) Character/Binary/Decimal
b) Floating point
5) Cryptography...COMPRESSION/CIPHER/PERFORM
6) I/O...CHANNEL
7) Maths
a) Binary
b) Floating point
c) Decimal
8) Move...PAGE/MOVE/LOAD/STORE/INSERT
9) Trace..TRACE
10) Transaction..TRANSACTION
11) Trap...TRAP
12) Others
4) An iPoP app that can display an individual instruction with multiple
cross-references for local use.
5) A Web app to do the same, but has the advantage of being international and
collective.
"People who looked up LG also looked up LLGF"
Let the discourse begin.
