> Just curious: Do you "gnuify" the VM before compiling it[*]? The above  
> looks
> as if you might still be using the switch-based dispatch (in which case
> there should be no difference between the two versions as the branch
> prediction will _always_ be wrong no matter how you arrange the  
> bytecodes).

Ooops. Ok, here are the numbers from CodeWarrior version (os-9) for  
3.5.2b1 It's not gnuified
and the declare reads like so
int interpret(void) {
register struct foo * foo = &fum;
     int localHomeContext;
     char* localSP;
     char* localIP;
     int currentBytecode;
     int localReturnContext;
     int localReturnValue;

so everything is left up to the code warrior compiler to decide.

10	0	0
100	0	0
1000	1	1
10000	11	10
100000	104	109
1000000	1032	1025
10000000	10282	10207
10	0	0
100	0	1
1000	1	1
10000	11	9
100000	111	100
1000000	1025	1020
10000000	10261	10198



======================================================================== 
===
John M. McIntosh <johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com> 1-800-477-2659
Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd.  http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com
======================================================================== 
===