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<DIV><FONT size=2>>> "Just out of curiosity: how much does one pay for
such a kit? I don't know whether my wife would approve of a major investment
into something of little perceived value."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Hans-Martin,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Marriage is based on "give and take" -- sometimes one must
give excuses, while at other times it's necessary to take chances.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><G></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>The Xilinx <A
href="http://www.xilinx.com/products/boards/ml401/index.htm">ML401</A> runs
about US$500.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Gary</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>----- Original Message ----- </FONT>
<DIV><FONT size=2>From: "Hans-Martin Mosner" <</FONT><A
href="mailto:hmm@heeg.de"><FONT size=2>hmm@heeg.de</FONT></A><FONT
size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>To: <</FONT><A
href="mailto:hardware@lists.squeakfoundation.org"><FONT
size=2>hardware@lists.squeakfoundation.org</FONT></A><FONT
size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 2:29 AM</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Subject: Re: [Hardware] language neutral
processors</FONT></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><BR></FONT></DIV><FONT size=2>Jecel Assumpcao Jr
schrieb:<BR>> I am back from a nice vacation (my first since 1982...) and see
that you<BR>> have all been waiting patiently for me to return before
starting any<BR>> interesting discussions ;-)<BR>> <BR>Ok, now
that you're back, I can finally ask the questions which have<BR>puzzled me ever
since :-)<BR>When implementing Smalltalk hardware, what kind of object memory
design<BR>would you prefer:<BR>- object table vs. direct pointer<BR>- ref
counting vs. generation scavenging cs -whatever-<BR>- page-based virtual memory
vs. object-based VM vs. none at all<BR>- in-band tags vs. out-of-band
tags<BR>Let me explain the last one. Smalltalk Implementations have
typically<BR>had in-bad tags, i.e. the tags have only meaning in a word which
is<BR>known to be an oop. The Burroughs machines had out-of-band tags,
that<BR>is, every memory word had an additional tag. That way, you could
even<BR>know whether a memory word contained uninterpreted bytes, a float
value,<BR>or an "oop" (descriptor).<BR><BR>> One interesting side effect of
this trip is that I now have a new FPGA<BR>> development kit - the ML401 from
Xilinx. <BR>> <BR>Just out of curiosity: how much does one pay
for such a kit? I don't<BR>know whether my wife would approve of a major
investment into something<BR>of little perceived value
:-)<BR><BR>Cheers,<BR>Hans-Martin<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Hardware
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