Re: Greg's questions

[Jeff Fox <Fox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi MISC readers:

I got quite a bit personal email from Greg today.  Each
message contained more insults, I would say that he
must have called me a liar fifty times today as well
as a lot of other names.  I will admit that my
replies to him did show less and less patience.

I was a bit supprised to see this one also bounced
to MISC mail list.  But it didn't seem out of character
for Greg to send me hundreds of questions and insults and 
then post one of my responses out of context to make his point.
Just so people have a little context.

Greg Alexander wrote:
 
> >> Jeff and Chuck like to complain that nobody wants to read
> >> anything they write.

This simply isn't true.  It is a distortion.  Neither Chuck nor
I have said "nobody wants to read anything we write."  As I
said this is a distortion of the simple fact that some people
don't want to read anything that Chuck or I have to say
and are proud of it. Simple evidence of this can be found 
at the FIG web site.

I did a search there yesterday.  They had one referece to
the fact the Chuck did a presentation for FIG (Fireside Chat)
from 1998.  That was it.  Nothing else.  From the FIG
site there is almost no mention of anything Chuck has
done with Forth or said about Forth.  It isn't hard
to post the links to number of those presentations that
Chuck has done for FIG but for some reason despite
numerous requests by various people something prevents
it from happening.

I have made many requests to different people to fix
the links to UT that have been broken for years.  I also
know that I have had customers who have also asked FIG
to please fix their links and show some links to Chuck
Moore and UT and Forth chip and Chuck's essays on
quality Forth etc.  But no luck.  A few people who
don't want anyone to read what Chuck has to say
about Forth.  

Niether Chuck nor I have whined that "nobody wants to
read what we write."  I feel that there are some people
who are interested.  There are some people who are
interested in what Chuck has done with Forth or
what he has to say about it.  But apparently there
are a group of people who don't think that FIG
should provide this sort of info to the public. :-)

There are also a group of people in c.l.f who have
said that they have no interest and will refuse to
look at any examples of Chuck's code if posted in
c.l.f and that they have no interest in reading 
what he has to say. 

Of course we never said that these people were 
everyone.  That is a distortion as the first insult
in that letter and I challenged Greg to provide at
least one example where either Chuck or I said that
"nobody wants to read anything we write."  We never
said that.

I wanted Greg to realize that he made up the 
"nobody want to" stuff and attributed it to me
and Chuck but that it did come from him and not
from us.  Simply a distortion.  Let's see if he could
quote us if he could find any quotes or not.

> >I don't recall that.  Can you give me a reference where I said that?
> >It won't prove what I "like" but it would prove that you didn't
> >just make it up.

Oh, yes.  As I pointed out in my reply to Greg he also went into
our motivation.  He stated that we "liked" to whine.  It is
bad enought that he makes up quotes and attributes them to
Chuck and myself but he also can interpret our motives and
what we were thinking for other people.  Get real.
 
> Example of you complaining:
>     As I have said.  There is a crowd in c.l.f who are proud of not
>     knowing anything about it.  They proudly announce that they will
>     ignore any examples or explanations posted because they don't
>     want to know about it.
> (from private email, but I've seen you express this sentiment often enough
> that I hope it's okay to post it to the list).  Now it's definitely
> possible that this was not really complaining and that you are perfectly
> happy with these people not respecting your ideas, perhaps based off of an
> incorrect assumption that they are universally stupid.  I like such
> assumptions, they are convenient, but damn are they limiting!

I complained. I had good reason to complain.  I think it is joke
that so many people in c.l.f think that they know about Forth
than Chuck.  I complained that I am embarrased to read posts
by people who are proud of their ignorance and state that
they will put their hands over their eyes if examples are
put before them that they don't want to see or think about.  
I feel embarresed for everyone who does Forth to have that 
kind of attitude associated with Forth folks.  I had to pretty
much give up on c.l.f becuase I can't saying anthing there
without certain people posting that it could not be true
because of the source. But you notice I said nothing
about "no one wants to read what I have written." ;-)

I complained because I think that there are some people who
would like to hear about what Chuck is doing but they are not
likely to because anyone who even mentions the subject in c.l.f
will have to put up with insults and attacks.  It is a shame
that people do that.

But I never said that "nobody wants to" and Greg's example
certainly does not support his insult that we are whining.
All the whining I have heard has been from Greg that
no one helps him, no one gives him what he wants for
free, everything everyone else has done is excrement and 
that he is really angry about it.
 
> Example of Chuck complaining (page 103 first?? second?? third?? edition of
> MuP21 programming manual)
>     The Establishment
> 
>     I've got to pass on to you my latest encounter with the
>     establishment.  It is disturbing and it is illuminating.  I told
>     you before that I was writing a paper for HOPL 2, the Second
>     Conference on the History of Programming Languages.  I got a
>     letter a month ago saying that they regretted that they could not
>     accept my paper.  I wrote in my own style what had occured in
>     those early days.  It was not in the academic style they expected.
>     <...>
> Chuck clearly is not happy with his rejection by 'the
> establishment', so I don't know how this could be portrayed as
> anything but complaining.  Note that I avoided the connotationally
> loaded word "whining."

Chuck was complaining. He complained that there were people 
interested in Forth but that his paper was not accepted at HOPL 2
because it was not politially correct.  He felt that there
were some people who might be interested, after all it had
been ten years since he wrote a paper.  He felt bad that some
people would like to read what he writes but can't.  That is
almost the opposite of Greg's assertion that Chuck says that
"no one is listening."  

I think any reasonable person can see the difference between
saying some people are interested but those who hate the
project can make it hard for the people who are interested
in it to get information by talking about absurd ideas
like cults or by insult and profanity pollution.

I have done a lot of work to make this information available
to the public.  For this I get called a lot of nasty names.
And we all put up with these types of distortions and insults
for even being willing to discuss these ideas with people.

> >> I want to, but I find that the only document
> >> produced by any of the trio (Jeff,Chuck,Ting) that has any import to me
> >> (MuP21 programming manual) is a piece of shit.

Very polite. ;-)  That is the sort of thing that will really get
the players to provide the free support that Greg so despirately
needs.  If you call someone's work excrement and when they
try to help you say that thier help is "worthless" and then
proceed to start in with insults and name calling like "liar"
and "cultist" you are really shooting yourself in the foot
if you really did want any help.
 
> It seems stupid to complain and insult that people have not read
> what you have published when you do not make these things readily
> available to us.  

Yes, I know it is all my fault for not putting everything you
always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about P21 and Offete 
and God only knows what else at my set site specifically for you.  
I know you have told me that I am the person
who is responsible for providing you this service and you feel
that I have failed at this so you want to insult me.  But
really Greg, I have told you many times, as have other
people in this list that I am not responsible for Offete
products or support.  But other people explaining this to
you again and agian just seems to bounce of you like you
are not listening to anything anyone has said to you in
the MISC mail list.

> I've read what you've put on your website and I
> am thankful for it.  I've even payed for the P21 programming
> manual, something I consider wasted money.  I can't afford to pay
> for 30 issues of More on Forth Engines or for a lot of Forth
> Dimension back issues or whatever else you may suggest.

I advised you to talk to Dr. Ting and ask for his help on his
chip.  You told us in MISC that you didn't want to do that.
I advised you to ask Ting for a product list and descriptoin
of what exactly is in each issue of the 25 issues of More
on Forth Engines and the related documents to get the info
you want on P21.  The bootom line was, contact Offete.  But
for some reason you refused to do any of that.  

I even suggested that if you just ask your questions in
MISC without all the insults and name calling that you
could get answers there.  But I have had mail from other
people saying that they just can't believe this new guy
who just complains about everything and insults everyone.
 
> >I will repeat the advice that I have been giving you for months.
> >There are about 30 documents on P21.  None of them are without
> >some kind of problem.  No single document will answer all the
> >questions that anyone will have.
> 
> On May 14th I started complaining, and I was well done complaining
> by June 12th, which is when I ordered my MuP21+manual.  I only two
> days ago resumed complaining, at least on the list, and only a
> week before that began complaining to you.  You did not tell me to
> look at other things, though you suggested that some issues of
> More on Forth engines would be useful.  It is prohibitively
> expensive to buy all of More on Forth Engines.  Are you mad at me
> because I'm too poor to buy what you want me to, or because you
> think I wouldn't read them even if I could afford them?

No of course not.  I did think it was rather stupid of you to
post all that stuff for so long about how if it isn't free
and on the web you don't consider it real or your calling
me a liar for claiming that documentation did exist.  I
also think it would have been easy for you to go to Offete
and ask for what you wanted rather than keep complaining
that I wasn't giving you the information you need about
Offete and that this was my responsibilty.
 
> >available because he refused to go beyond the web and my site.
> 
> No, because I lacked the money.  When I got the money I bought the
> documentation that was suggested, the MuP21 programming manual.
> Even if it had been suggested that I buy all of More on Forth
> Engines, I certainly do not have the money for that for at least
> another month, and that's only if I decide not to buy anything
> else, like food.

You could have called Ting and had your questions answered. But
instead you just complained and complained that it was all the
fault of Jeff Fox because he is reponsible for providing you
the support you need from Offete. When I said, try Offete
you ignored me, then insulted me.

Now you want to say I was mad at you because you were poor and
couldn't afford documentation at printing and shipping costs.
In fact it was your complaints about me not doing such and
such for you combined with your insults towards me, Ting,
and Chuck that turned me off.  It was the fact that you
complained but would not even make a phone call to Offete
that I thought was stupid.  I wasn't the only one.  Other
peole gave you the same advide. You also ignored them and
said that they "never tried to help you" and insulted
them too.  

It isn't a matter of being poor. It is a matter of not
listening to anyone and not showing civilized behavior.
Complaining and complaining isn't helping anyone unless
it just makes you feel better.

Well anyway I won't go though this point by point as
I did patiently in private email.  So I will snip most of
what remains.  You have already heard my reply and
this stuff would just boor and disgust most of the
misc readers.

> Okay, let's play fair.  After so many years you have only NOW
> bothered to produce the F21d.  What took you so damn long?  OH
> WAIT MAYBE YOU'RE NOT MADE OF MONEY EITHER.  

shouting is not good manners.  cool off a little.  I know are
mad about everything but keep things civil if you can.

> your stuff, and you're also complaining that you are broke because
> of supporting F21 development, and you make fun of us for
> complaining that we do not have the money to buy Ting's horrible
> documentation?

Never. I have never made fun of anyone for being poor.  If
provoked I might make fun of someone who doesn't know how
to use a telephone and can only do his research on the web.
Perhaps you don't realize that while the web makes it easy to 
get information that lot of what you find there is fluff or 
just plain wrong.  Sign of the times I think.

> I'm looking at the maximum of the documentation available to me.
> The availability is limited, among other things, by:

Not true.  You have dismissed many free sources in information
available to you.  You have called them "worthless" without
even investigating them.  Then insulted the people who where 
sincereley trying to help you in the process.

>         * my financial situation
>         * Ting's disinterest in the english market
>         * your reluctance to give straight answers

If you really think that and cannot make a statement
without trying to insult Dr. Ting, Chuck or myself
I doubt if many people will have much patience with you.
  
> If it's worthless then it's not help.  If it's not what I want,
> it's not help.  These are valid complaints.  At any rate, I
> haven't even said that.  

You just did.  And you have said it before.  It is tiresome.

> Nobody that you have not flamed here or
> on c.l.f has told me until after I had gotten the MuP21 programming
> manual that this book is not a definitive P21 reference and that I
> would neet to buy the entire MFE set to understand anything.

Nobody that I have flamed has told you that either. 
No one has told you that from what I have seen.  Did I miss
the post where you were told this?  I doubt it.

> No, I've never seen you do that.  I'm not some idiot who just
> jumped on the list.  I've seen how you act, there's no point lying

what was that? about fifty times today you have called me
a liar.  If you think I lie about everything then I don't know
what intererst you have in MISC.  Doesn't make much sense to me.

> and pretending that you use the MISC list for answering questions.
> You use it for proselytizing.  Proselytizing is what you do,
> there's no doubt about that, and that word has STRONG religious
> connotations, and that's why people see you as an attempted cult
> leader.  I've been forcefully excommunicated merely beacuse I'm

religion? cult leader? 

> too stupid to understand shitty documentation.  That's why we look
> like a cult, because one minute we're defending you and then we

cult?

> say the slightest negative thing and you're suddenly flaming us
> like no tomorrow.  

Ah, calling people liars and cultists is not exactly the
"slightest negative thing".  You are trying very hard to be
as insulting as possible and you know it.  I have not yet begun 
to flame you, believe me.

> I don't think you've got the ability or effort
> or whatever to remember who the fuck I am or how I've acted, but

I know who you are. You are that foul mouthed person who
ignores all the advice everyone gives him, insults them and
spews profanity, and whines all the time in the misc mail list.

> you assume I"ve been attacking you for years when the closest I
> came began on May 14th of this year.  Nevermind that on May 14th I
> wasn't even complaining, I was just asking questions, trying to
> find out what I needed to get...you started attacking me, after
> I'd been a verbal supporter for several years.  Why the hell do
> you think I got mad?

You have been mad about lots of things since you arrived.  You have
told us so. I think you came in mad and will leave mad.  I think you
are mad.
 
> >It is a fun party.  You are invited.  If it is more fun for
> 
> No I'm not, because I don't have enough money to join the "in
> group" that has a bookshelf full of badly written incorrect and
> contradicting Ting documents.

Money has never been the issue here.  When people have offered
free stuff you called it "worthless" and further insulted them
by saying that "no one offered to give you any help."  If it
wasn't what you wanted it was worthless and said that
it was help either, not by your definition.  Sounds like the 
world revolves around Greg in your mind.
 
> >No one says that you should prefer P21 to a TI chip.  The
> >people here who do don't need to argue with you about it.  If
> >you want to find your fun elsewhere then feel free.  We
> >won't feel offended if you have more fun doing other
> >things.
> 
> No, you don't understand at all.  I am upset because I want to
> find my fun in P21 chips, but you and Ting have erected
> unnecessary barriers to its use.  Ting did so because he doesn't
> care about the American market.  You have done so because you are
> very hostile.

As I said half jokingling to Greg earlier, "No those barriers
are very important.  We errected them so that we wouldn't have
to deal with impossible types who don't have a clue, ask for
help, refuse it, insult eveyone, and complain that they just
hate all this stuff because they can't find a "MISC for
Dummies" book.
 
> >If you prefer Offete's chip, but because it isn't a big established
> >company where you can find many other companies writing code
> >for you, publishing documentation, how to books, for dummies
> >books etc. then it makes sense that you would prefer to
> >deal with TI.  (have you considered the basic stamp?  tons of
> >beginner level documentation.  That is who it is targeted for.)
> 
> I'm not asking for how to books, I'm asking for simple, accurate,
> and complete documentation.

You don't just want documentation. You want someone to explain it
to you while listen to a stream of your insults.  It seems you want
someone to read it to you at bedtime and not get mad
if you shout or urinate on the floor in a temper tamtrum.
 
> >Even if you prefer the UT chip you might
> >prefer to deal with TI for the reasons that a big company
> >will provide you with a very well beaten path taken by
> >thousands or millions of others before you got there. You
> 
> The P21 path has been well beaten but I have to pay hundreds
> of dollars to get the record of the path, by your accounting.

Relatively speaking it is a well beaten path compared to
what it was six or seven years ago. I have published
megabytes of documentation and explained lots of things
to lots of people. There are now a whole group of
people who can reliably answer questions because they
have done their homework and figured it out.

Again money is not the issue here.  Free tools were sufficient
to develop much of the software for P21.  People have been
able to write lots of great code, I have been really 
impressed by some of it, without spending anything.  But
I know this is all "worthless" to you.  

But compared to TI or Intel it is certainly anything
but a beaten path even today.  There are a few paths,
and a few maps provided by Chuck, Ting, and myself 
mostly.  But not much compared to the hundreds of 
books you can buy about popular chips or any flavor
of software that you like (except Forth of course. ;-)
 
> >There is no need to make a value judgement here.  You are
> >free to prefer the beaten path, with lots of other people
> >providing you the documentation and tools you need to
> >get going.  Perhaps that is what you need for your projects,
> >your wants, your needs.  No shame in that.  Nor do we
> >feel shame for exploring where there is no path and
> >where we have to make our own maps.  Each to his own.
> 
> That's your inevitable response to anyone who comes up with a
> severe problem that is likely to impact UT, eh?  "Go elsewhere,
> use somebody else's chip."  

Not everyone, but certainly some people.  Computers are not
for everyone. MISC is also not for everyone and even more so
at this stage of things. I certianly don't want everyone
there is asking me questions about MISC.  I think we need
to get some people to go where they they and everyone
here will be happier.

> Obviously I was a FUCKING RETARD for not knowing this.

No, but you are also not a genius for complaining and 
insulting people so much before getting around to asking
any questions.  You will be lucky if anyone takes the time
to even try to help you when you use profanity and insult
everyone in sight.

> Don't bother lying to me.  I know this documentation isn't
> correct.

Lying to you?  You have a lot of problems I think that go
beyond understanding technical documents.
 
> >> I've seen enough data sheets by people who don't give a fuck if I
> >> understand their documentation that were still more clear than 

now now Greg, control your temper.  count to ten and take a deep
breath.
 
> >> Nowhere does it say when the MuP21 is expecting the RAM to have
> >> stabilized its data outputs for a read cycle.

It isn't a tutorial on how memory works.

> >> Nowhere does it say when
> >> the MuP21's data outputs are stable for a write.

Do you need to be told that too?

> It doesn't.  Even experienced hardware hackers have stumbled over
> these problems.  Stop playing deaf.  Nobody else had problems
> because they wanted to use DRAM in the DRAM access area.  Maybe
> this seems intuitively obvious to you.  I suspect Chuck would
> disagree and say that ignoring its purpose and instead using
> whatever is best for your project is better.  Maybe I should ask
> him.  Anyone have contact information?  I can be respectful to
> Chuck: He has not sold me low quality products like Ting or been
> very rude like Jeff.

Of course I have an email address for Chuck.  But you cc'ed 
me earlier today on the letter you sent to Dr. Ting to insult
him.  I see no reason to pass you on to anyone else (unless
I really really didn't like them of course. ;-)

Chuck would be very nice to you as he is to everyone and
try to answer your questions, for a while.  He has more
patience than I but he does admit that he sometimes just
has to admit that no matter how hard he might try there
are some people who will never get it and that he
needs to focus on the people who do have some hope of
getting it and back away from those who can't.
 
> It turns out I was reading it correctly.  Thanks for taking
> another opportunity to be hostile.  I just didn't know that it
> represented two cycles.

Well when someone calls me a liar many times I could get hostile.
But I have not really gotten hostile by my def.  I laugh off
most of your insults because I just can't really take you
seriously. ;-)
 
> >> Jeff's P21Forth manual says that if the + is the first inst in a word then
> >> we don't need a NOP, but that doesn't make sense,
> >
> >Oh, but it does.  You are obviously thinking of some other
> >architecture and making assumptions that this chip works the same
> 
> No I'm not.
> 
> >way.  I have explained this before, but once again, the way
> >the chip works is that all possible instructions execute on
> >each clock cycle and that the instruction decode selects the
> >results of the operations rather than preparing the setup
> >to start the execution of the proper instruction as with
> >other architectures that require extra cycles and pipelines
> >to compensate for this.  The zero operand architecture
> >accounts for part of this, but also Chuck has made an
> >unusual design trade off using parallelism at the instruction
> >level to get instructions to execute while they are being
> >docoded. (it only saves a 1/10 of ns but every little bit helps.)
> 
> Are you talking about clocks as in each instruction gets one
> clock, or each word gets one clock?  

niether actually.

> My original interpretation of
> that explanation was that each instruction gets one clock, and in
> that case it seems like having + at the beginning of a word would
> be a bad idea.  

Sound like you are not only assuming that the chip's internals
work like completely different designs, but that you realize
that these mixed up models could not work and would be a bad idea.
If is your idea.  Not my idea or Chuck's idea.  I would prefer
to talk about MISC chips that exist instead of the problems
with MISC chips that you can imagine.

> If instead each word gets one clock then that
> changes things a bit, doesn't it?  If you were CLEAR the first
> time around, I wouldn't've needed to ask the second time around.

I was talking about the internal clocking when I was talking
about the twelve steps that happen in each opcode.  That is one
sort of clock, remember the chip is unclocked.  Then there is
one instruction time for each instruction.  Then there is one
memory clock for each memory operation including instruction
loads.

So although the chip is unclocked one could talk about the
memory cycles, the instruction cycles, or the internal steps
inside of an instruction. You asked about +.  I explained
why NOPs were needed in front of the + and I could only
do that by talking about the steps inside of the opcode.

Did you ask the question twice.  I lose count sometimes.
I have always tried to explain it clearly to anyone who
asks.   Even if they did call me a liar 25 times today.

>         So I guess that 2* and 2/ don't actually do anything, 

2* does a left shift into carry.  2/ does a right shift from
carry.  I would not say they don't actually do anything.  They
are simple but not NOPs.

> they just affect some counter that affects how far over the final
> result for the end of that word gets shifted?  Thanks!  

There is no counter that affects how far things get shifted.
They get shifted by 1 bit.  This is done by the transistors
inside of the circuits for the 2* and 2/ opcodes.  The circuits
are simply simplifed shifters with half the transistors in
conventional shifters (because of the bus) and there are
no counters associated with them (or with any other 
CPU instructions for that matter.)
 
> That's just charming.  A processor, released with bugs, and no
> decent explanation of the bugs.  

Yes, P21 had a bug in production that was not there in
prototypes. The production chip had a bug like almost
every chip anyone has ever head of.  I remember a discussion
in comp.architecture on day where some asked if anyone
could report any CPU chip ever made that was bug free.
As I recall no one could.

Things like that are frightening.  I know Ting paid for 8
prototype runs to debug the chip and then after it was
working sold a house to get production of a minimal number
of parts to offer them to other people (at no more of a loss
to him than the cost of home in California) so that other
people could get access to them.  I am sure he was not
happy that production introduced a new bug.  But it was
one of those inconsequential bugs.  The only person
really effected was me since I had to modify P21Forth
and recompile it to support the production chips.

> should I just include a NOP in
> front of all A!s, then?  Or you want I should UNDERSTAND when it
> happens so I don't need to be so wasteful?

I would prefer that you don't use any nops in your code at all. ;-)
 
> knowledge out of nothing.  So after all your bitching about how
> stupid me and the rest of the world is, what I've figured is that

your welcome. 

> It doesn't confuse me.  Nobody had told me about it clearly until
> now.

You didn't ask until now. 
 
> It's in the MuP20 app.notes appendix, on the second page, showing
> a diagram of timing registers that you say are not in the MuP21.

OK. I stand corrected.  What are addresses of the registers?
What bits in the registers control the timing. How do I set
them to get the speed I want.  

I know how to do these things on F21.  Maybe I forget how
to do them on P21.  If that is the case please tell me what
I forgot.  I really don't remember every bit of every 
register after so many years.  

As I recall the circuit was new to F21 because I requested
it.  I don't recall the circuit on P21.  So please refresh
my memory with the details, anyone?

I see if I can find a P21 programming manual and see what
it says about this.  Maybe I forgot a detail from six
years ago, but I seem to remember it the way I wrote it.

> >in a configuration register that control the upper two bits
> >sent out to ROM (select one of 4 pages in the ROM address window)
> >This might be what you are refering to.  I don't know.
> >
> >> They seem to be counting
> >> clocks -- what's a clock on the MuP21?

I was talking about bits in the memory control
register.  I guess you must be talking about the things called
memory timing registers.  They may even be count down
registers that determine the timing on P21.  But unless
the user can access them or write to them I consider them
just like most of the other transistors in the hardware,
invisible to a programmer.  As I recall P21 has only this
one control register.

one could say that there are hundreds or thousands of
registers in the hardware but I am using the term to
refer only to registers visible to the cpu since
programmers really don't need to talk about things
that are completely invisible to them.  

I don't want to argue about the defintion of register.
If there are writable timing registers on P21 it would
be a suprise to me.

I do recall the idiotic discussion in c.l.f where
someone was insisting that there was circuit that
interrupted the CPU and had it adjust the timing
registers on the fly somehow while the chip was
running that that this was the source of the
problem when this user "blew" on his chip and
watched it "jump."

I never denied that he was seeing something.  But
it was impossible to answer his questions because
they were just so full of invalid assumptions from
what I could tell that they made no sense.  But no
only did he insist that this circuit that I never
heard of before was the source of the problem he
had, but he also insisted that it was the fatal
flaw in all MISC chips that would ever be made.
How can a problem with a circuit that isn't there
be a problem let alone THE problem?  What could
anyone say?   What do expect from a discussion of
misc hardware in c.l.f? ;-)

> >> How does the MuP21 idle?
> >
> >NOPs
> 
> I thought you said it generated every result automatically at the
> beginning of an instruction [word?]  

no. it generates every valid result from every opcode fairly
early on in the execution of each 2ns opcode.  An instruction
word can have up to four opcodes.  

> In this case it seems like it
> would do the same work for a NOP as for anything else.  I wasn't
> asking how to not get useless work done, I was asking how to
> reduce power consumption.

There is no idle instruction.  So how do you reduce power 
when you want to?  You could do two things.  You could
excute NOPs instead of other instructions.  Yes, many
transistors do have to operate to execute a NOP, but
not as many as any other instruction and substantiallly
less than A! or memory operations.  In addition to
nops to keep power keep the CPU on one page.

To dramatically lower power you could use a circiut
that reduces the system voltage.  At low voltages it 
will run much slower but also at much lower power.
If you want lowest power then reduce voltage until
it will only run out of ROM and execute a delay
loop in ROM.  I was able to reduce power consumption
by 99% on F21 by doing that.  Sleep for a while,
wake up and check things, go back to sleep etc.

But remember that there is no idle instruction or
sleep mode.  One of the ideas of the simulator was
that it would make the instruction set obvious
to people because they could visually see exaclty
what each instruction does.  Anyone who plays with
it for a little while will know what instructions
they have, and don't have, and how they work.  It
was provided to people for free so that they could
easily learn this stuff without any investment
except time.
 
> "if you disable the hardware refresh" are you referring to the
> video coprocessor?  So in order to use DRAM I must enable the
> coprocessor or generate refreshes by hand?

yep. that is what you have to do.  Refresh is on of the video
coprocessor instructions.  But if you want to use it for
refresh only you can always do that.  You don't need to
give it 7Mhz clock or the majority of the memory bandwidth
if you don't need to generate video.  You could use a very
slow clock that uses 1% of the bandwidth and write a
program for the copressor that is just refreshes and a loop.

Remember this a programmable analog output subsystem.  Ting
showed one example of using it as a tone generator.  People
have done PAL instead of NTSC.  It is an analog output
coprocessor specialize but not limited to video.  It also
provides refresh to DRAMS.  So if you are not generating
video you can use it just generate refresh, or you can
produce refresh in software, or you can use some kind
of DRAM that produces its own refresh.  That is the list
of options.
 
> >> The data stack is 6 words deep and does work all the way on the production
> >> plastic MuP21s, right?  I can ignore the notes saying that the bottom 2
> >> words are broken?
> >
> >Sounds like a description of one or more of the 8 prototype chips
> >not the production chips.
> 
> Thanks.  I figured that was the case, but just making sure.

Remember I was the first person to complain that the P21 docs
are full of problems like that.  In paragraph it give a
register by its pattern designation.  Inthe next paragraph
it refers to its address but in neither case is it likely
to tell you which point of view it is using at given time.
You have to work it out like a puzzle or ask someone who
has.  That is just the way it is.  There are also things
that might document bugs in protype chips that was never
removed from the documentation.  No single piece is
perfect (P21Forth is close ;-) so people need to ask
or perform experiments.  

Its not ideal. But those of us who did this stuff before
any of this documentation existed know how much easier
it with rough documentation than it was really without
any documentation.  When you get a chip back who tells
you what bugs it has?  How do you figure it out?  If a
chip has unknown bugs that prevent it from running the
previous software what do you do? Start over from 
scratch every time?  Almost.  Those of us who have
done it dozens of times without any docs think that
the docs that exist now are great compared to nothing.

I wrote the simulator and P21Forth before there was any
documentation available.  Sound impossible?  Not really,
it was pretty easy. These chips are really simple.  I
just had to ask a few questions whenever I didn't understand
how things worked.  A few times I went, OH I will have to
recode that completely I really didn't understand how that
worked....
 
> >> Keep in mind that if I were rich, I would buy a logic analyzer, and I
> >> would figure this all out that way.  

I would advise you that that is the hard way for sure.  The last
time I saw Chuck he was talking about the engineer who mostly used
the logic analyzer on the chips.  It was really slow, really slow
tedious work.  Even if you have an expensive unit that you can
program to scramble address bits and data patterns on the memory
bus so that they look like they do logically inside of the chip.

I was glad that we had someone doing this stuff, because once
in while it was very valuable in tracking down hard to find
bugs etc.  But is a really really slow way to work with the
chips.
 
> Oh, I didn't mean it seemed like a bad idea, I just meant I didn't
> understand how it worked.

By this time I had become pretty impatient with being called 
liar so many times.  I may not have given you all your answers
without a few insults of my own.   But I am glad that I was
able to provide you with some information that you found useful.
 
> >> "A
> >> different boot code will be provided when the production MuP21 is
> >> available."  Where?
> >
> >There are a half dozen different versions of the boot code that
> >has been released since P21.  See Offete and UT products.  You can
> >even find one online. ;-)
> 
> Where?  I have only found S21 and OK on ultratechnology.com for
> download.  I expected OK to have something like this, but it
> doesn't seem to.

P21Forth is metacompiled, but it uses a variation of Chuck
and Ting's OK boot code to boot into P21 and to provide
the I/O routines and windowing functions.  The OK101F
code is there and does include a variation of the boot
code that Ting distributes.   

Various other people who wrote for P21 made other
variations.  Ting published a variety of different versions
of it with different features.  If you didn't find it
documented you can always ask Dr. Ting.  He did one
specialize for graphics and ran compression routines
in it. He had or more for Chinese output.  Offete should
be the source for info on the Offete chip.  That is
where most of the code, examples, and documentation 
exist.  There are also people on the net who have
worked on this stuff.
 
> >> Since apparently the only functioning constant is 44,
> >
> >??? the only functioning constant is 44?  What are you talking
> >about?  Maybe you are talking about a literal opcode rather than
> >a constant.  All constants function on P21....
> 
> I was talking about 8-bit mode.  It may not even be for real on
> modern chips, but in the MuP21 programming manual I have, it has
> source for an 8-bit boot loader and a comment there says that 44
> is the only working constant.

Sounds like Tinglish to me.  You really need to remember that
Dr. Ting is not a native English speaker.  I  could believe
that to state the opcode for LIT is 44h might express that 
as 44 is the only working constant.  If you are not familiar
with Tinglish you might be confused.  But its not that hard
to make sense out of it.   

The idea that a working chip could not use any constant
except 44 hex is pretty crazy.  It is hard to imagine that
no constant except 44h could be used.  That just wouldn't make
much sense.  However if notice that 44 is the opcode for
# and that this is also what Ting refers to as the way
to produce constants in Forth then you can see that it
means that the only opcode for # which is used to do literals
is 44h it would make a lot more sense.  

Ting doesn't just speak English with an accent, he also
writes it that way.  I am not complaining mind you, I
can't write as well as a five year old in Chinese.  I
greatly appreciate Ting's tremendous effort to do the
work and provide the documentation.  I used to tell him
about the errors in his docs until I figured that the
info was just getting lost because he was always moving
on next month to the next project.  This means he
has hundreds of products and he spreads himself out
pretty thin as a one man company that not only
produces hundreds of products, but hundreds of
different books documenting these products. 

I think of it as similar to the effort required to
post ten megabytes of information about the history
of Forth, P21, F21, AI, etc.  So I am thankful
to Ting for getting me started.  Like Chuck he was
very nice and helpful at answering my questions.
Of course I didn't begin by sending him mail saying
what shitty products he has and how clueless he
is and how he is doomed to failure before I
asked him to help me.  (not that I would do that 
sort of thing anyway, just making a small point.)
 
> If it really only allows one constant in 8-bit mode then I think
> the name of that constant would be a lot more meaningful than LIT,
> because LIT gives the illusion that you can use any constant.

No.  I think that you _can_ load any constant. There may be
a gotcha in 8 bit memory however.  LIT should load the next
cell to the top of the stack. It the word in Forth that
gets compiled by LITERAL to do that.  But in 8 bit memory
you will still read 20 bits.  I believe the upper 12 bits
will be the same as the address and the lower 8 bits will
be what was read from the address.  So # isn't exaclty like
# in 20 bit memory. You will get garbage in the upper bits
in 8 bit memory and you have to get rid of them.  The boot
code requires reading 8 bit locations, combining then
to make 20 bit opcodes that get put in DRAM and then
jump into DRAM to continue the same thing but much
faster from DRAM.  The boot code then copies the rest of
image into memory.  

> >Of the dozens of questions you have asked I have given thoughful
> >and detailed answers to all of them that I could understand.  I
> 
> hah.
> 
> >also had to correct a lot of wrong assumptions that you mixed
> >in with your questions.  I think this should show to anyone that
> 
> hah.  hah.
> 
> >people have been tring to answer your questions even if they
> >have been asked and answered many times before.  Most people
> 
> hahahahahah
> 
> >do ask their questions more politely, without the profanity
> >and insults.
> 
> fuck off.

Lovely Greg.

> Jeff, you're a liar and a flake.

And you a sweet guy with lots class. ;-)
 
> For years I saw people say that.  I saw people say that you had no
> idea what you were doing.  I saw people say that UT will fail
> because you have no clue what you're doing trying to run a chip
> business.  

Of couse you also read a lot of other reasons in c.l.f why UT
would fail that had to do the stuff people were making up.  I
doubt if very many people knew that was real and what was
made up.  I figure that anyone reading stuff there at that
time can consider themselves about as missinformed as possible.

> I've seen people say that the P21 is badly documented
> and a strong argument against the validity of MISC.  

MISC needs no validation. It stands on its own merits.
But I know many people need an endorsement by the crowd
to accept anything.

> I've seen
> people say that Ting doesn't care about his customers.  I've seen
> people say that F21 will never really be out of prototyping.  I've
> seen people say that MISC chips usually get released with bugs in
> them and that the bugs aren't documented well.  I've seen people
> say that you guys don't even understand the hardware behind it
> very well.  I've even seen a couple people say that MISC is the
> wrong way to go and that simplicity never works.

You have been around haven't you?  Heard lots of rummors.
 
> I've seen you act is if every insult came from someone who was too
> stupid to breath.  I've seen you act as if you have followers who
> agree with you on everything.  I've seen you act as if everyone
> who isn't a follower is a complete outsider, to be ridiculed and
> disrespected, obviously not a worthwhile customer.

your opinion.  Since you didn't have any access to accurate
information at the time you had to choose between whether I
was telling the truth or the people making stuff up about the
technology were telling the truth.  I figure that you must
have counted vote and gone with the majority in c.l.f

You have told me twenty five times today that I was a liar
so I suspect that you made your decision before you had
any facts.  Once your decision was made facts were no
longer relevant.
 
> For a long time I was a follower.

There are leaders and there are followers.  Anyone who wants to
explore uncharted territory can think of themselves as a leader,
but they don't need to.  They may not care if anyone else 
follows in the path they break.  They won't be there any more
and will be off exploring something new.  Some people are
followers, nothing wrong for that.  Some are also followers
who will only follow the largest crowd.  That is ok too for
people who really don't want to think at all.  Each to 
their own.
 
> Wow, I sure was blown away to find out I was wrong and c.l.f was
> right!  Jeff, you're a flake.  Ting's a flake in america -- maybe
> he's pursuing the taiwanese market.  Like that does me any good.
> 
> I wasted $50 on the MuP21.  I strongly advise nobody ever make the
> same mistke.

I would advise you that spending the money wasn't the mistake.
The mistake was burning the bridges behind you.  But personally
I kind of like the idea of your burning bridges behind you
since I am on the other side from where the bridge was. ;-)
 
> I fucking love MISC.  I think it's one of the greatest things

Are you angry about that? Angry about something else? Or are
you just too immature to express yourself without the profanity?

> going on right now.  I'm just really sad to see MISC represented
> in America by a fucking idiot like Jeff and someone who doesn't
> even care like Ting.  It's just a real fucking shame to see
> Chuck's great ideas wasted on the likes of them.

I take it you don't get any and as close as you get is using
the word as often as possible. ;-)
 
> I'm beyond respect for you Jeff.  For years I've seen you treat
> people the way you've treated me, insulting them constantly,
> pretending they're stupid because they're ignorant.  I've seen you
> be very rude to people because they haven't read your publications
> or Ting's publications, while refusing to publish important
> technological things.  

I think you need some therapy Greg.

> I've always assumed that these people had
> done something really stupid to warrant your asshole side.  Now I
> find out all they did was discover a little weakness in your
> fucking unrealistic dream.  I supported you verbally for years.
> On May 14th I posted about a major weakness to the P21.  I did it
> very politely, I honestly expected that people would point me to
> the right documentation.  I was pointed to the MuP21 programmer's
> manual.  I immediately received hostile messages from you because
> I implied that there might be something you could be doing that
> you aren't.  I bought the programmer's manual anyways.  I find
> that it's useless.  I said as much, and now all you can do is
> complain and tell me how stupid I am.

I don't need to.  You are demonstrating it for everyone.
 
> fuck that.  I've had enough.  I wish you the best of luck and I
> hope that someday a MISC product developed by Chuck will be good
> enough for me, and then good enough to be something I would
> actually recommend someone else use, but right now I just don't
> see that happening unless someone other than you and Ting starts
> working on actually producing the things.

remember to use fake name when ordering chips. ;-)
 
> The saddest thing is that I'm certain the P21 is a great chip.
> I'm almost certain that it's possible to get it to do what I want
> and to be a perfect step towards achieving my goals.  But fighting
> with you just to try to learn teh slightest thing about it, it's
> just not worth it.

Just when you had finally convinced me that your opinion and
support was the key element to success for everyone.  Too bad.

> I've not entirely given up on someday making use of my P21...but
> it's just not worth it.  Through lack of caring, Ting's taken
> something beautifully simple and made it horribly complicated,
> just with bad documentation.  You've further compounded this
> problem by being simultaneously MISC's loudest advocate and also
> the biggest asshole towards anyone who asks questions.
> 
> fuck off.

I think most if not all our readers would say that I answer 
everyone's questions in a sincere and detailed manner.  I
think these people also have no problem with my eventually
just having to give up on people who cannot act like an
adult. I also think that people will also understand that
I don't like being called a liar or cultist and have a
right to say what I think about it.

But I won't ask for anyone to post opinions in support of
mine.  Instead I will ask for everyone who agrees with
Greg to say so and will not post a single comment to any
more threads with this subject line.  So have at it and
say what you think.

Jeff Fox