[simpits-tech] Has anyone else ever noticed...

[Roy Coates]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, Simon Bennett wrote:

> Heh. Actually, the PDP-11's instruction set had a SEX instruction, for Sign
> EXtend...
>
> According to the jargon file:
> "DEC's engineers nearly got a PDP-11 assembler that used the SEX mnemonic
> out the door at one time, but (for once) marketing wasn't asleep and forced
> a change. That wasn't the last time this happened, either. The author of The
> Intel 8086 Primer, who was one of the original designers of the 8086, noted
> that there was originally a SEX instruction on that processor, too. He says
> that Intel management got cold feet and decreed that it be changed, and thus
> the instruction was renamed CBW and CWD (depending on what was being
> extended). Amusingly, the Intel 8048 (the microcontroller used in IBM PC
> keyboards) is also missing straight SEX but has logical-or and logical-and
> instructions ORL and ANL."


Small things amuse small minds.  It sure made ME laugh!

Thanks Simon.

Roy.