Re: virtual machine efficiency

ed_davis2 wrote:


> I have developed a simple stack based virtual machine. I would like
> it to be as efficient as possible, in terms of both speed and object
> code size. Size, as in size of the object code the VM processes
> (byte-code), and not necessarily the size of the VM.


(snips)


The last VM I built didn't allow you to embed large values into the
opcode stream. Instead each procedure had an associated constant
table, and you referred to large values by their index in the table.


Normally for loading big constants there was an eight-bit index field
(all instructions were 16 bits wide, with a 5+3 opcode, where the 3
bits might be an additional immediate value, or a sub-opcode), but
there was provision for handling the contextually-rare cases where
there were more than 256 big constants.


16-bit instructions turned out to be an interesting and occasionally
frustrating choice, as was the decision to try and combine stack-based
and register-aka-local-variable instructions. That the machine had
*two* stacks [1] - one for values, one for locals/return addresses - was
an automatic consequence of umpteen years writing Pop11 (and similar)
code.


[1] Well, two per thread.
--
Chris "electric hedgehog" Dollin

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