[TUHS] Happy birthday, PDP-8!

[usotsuki@buric.co (Steve Nickolas)]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2017, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> Essentially, you pass parameters in memory, as a part of the code stream. 
> Also, the PDP-8 certainly do have index registers.
>
> The first thing one must do is stop thinking of the AC as a register. The 
> accumulator is the accumulator. Memory is registers.
>
> Some memory locations autoincrement when used indirectly, they are called 
> index registers.
>
> That said, then. A simple example of a routine passing two parameters (well, 
> three):
>
> First the calling:
>
>        CLA
>        TAD   (42        / Setup AC with the value 42.
>        JMS   COUNT
>        BUFPTR
>        BUFSIZ
>        .                / Next instruction executed, with AC holding number 
> of matching words in buffer.
>        .
>
> Now, this routine is expected to count the number of occurances of a specific 
> word in a memory buffer with a specific size.
> At calling, AC will contain the word to search for, while the address 
> following the JMS holds the address, and the following address holds the 
> size.
>
> The routine:
>
> COUNT,  0
>        CIA
>        DCA    CHR        / Save the negative of the word to search for.
>        CMA
>        TAD I  COUNT
>        DCA    PTR        / Setup pointer to the address before the buffer.
>        ISZ    COUNT      / Point to next argument.
>        TAD I  COUNT
>        CIA
>        DCA    CNT        / Save negative value of size.
>        DCA    RESULT     / Clear out result counter.
> LOOP,   TAD I  PTR        / Get next word in buffer.
>        TAD    CHR        / Compare to searched for word.
>        SNA               / Skip if they are not equal.
>        ISZ    RESULT     / Equal. Increment result counter.
>        ISZ    CNT        / Increment loop counter.
>        JMP    LOOP       / Repeat unless end of buffer.
>        CLA               / All done. Get result.
>        TAD    RESULT
>        JMP I  COUNT      / Done.
>
> PTR=10
> CNT=20
> CHR=21
> RESULT=22
>
>
> Addresses 10-17 are the index registers, so the TAD I PTR instruction will 
> autoincrement the pointer everytime, and the increment happens before the 
> defer, which is why the initial value should be one less than the buffer 
> pointer.
>
> Hopefully this gives enough of an idea, but unless you know the PDP-8 well, 
> you might be a little confused by the mnemonics.
>
> As you can see, the return address at the start is used for more than just 
> doing a return. It's also your argument pointer.
>
>  Johnny
>
>

Actually, that reminds me of ProDOS-8 on the Apple ][, which uses a 
similar mechanism to pass parameters.

-uso.