Re: Keeping other stuff with addresses

another way to steal bits is over alignment.

Yup.  I keep lamenting that Alpha didn't go for bit-addressed memory,
which would have given us 3 extra free bits from alignment (as well as
allowing pointers to bits and bitfields).

I thought STRETCH persuaded people that bit addressable memory was a bad idea.

Yes, but that was a misunderstanding.  I'm not suggesting that
load/store instructions can access things at any bit position and any
bit size.  Any load or store with a pointer whose last 3 bits is not 0 would
presumably signal en error.
Just like the 21064 Alpha where they had byte-addressed memory but the
load/store instructions could only handle aligned words.


        Stefan