The Alpha AXP, part 4: Bit 15. Ugh. Bit 15.

Raymond Chen

Let’s load each of the powers of two up to 2³¹, in canonical form.

    LDA  Ra, 0x0001(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000001 ; bit  0
    LDA  Ra, 0x0002(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000002 ; bit  1
    LDA  Ra, 0x0004(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000004 ; bit  2
    LDA  Ra, 0x0008(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000008 ; bit  3
    LDA  Ra, 0x0010(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000010 ; bit  4
    LDA  Ra, 0x0020(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000020 ; bit  5
    LDA  Ra, 0x0040(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000040 ; bit  6
    LDA  Ra, 0x0080(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000080 ; bit  7
    LDA  Ra, 0x0100(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000100 ; bit  8
    LDA  Ra, 0x0200(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000200 ; bit  9
    LDA  Ra, 0x0400(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000400 ; bit 10
    LDA  Ra, 0x0800(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00000800 ; bit 11
    LDA  Ra, 0x1000(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00001000 ; bit 12
    LDA  Ra, 0x2000(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00002000 ; bit 13
    LDA  Ra, 0x4000(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00004000 ; bit 14
    LDAH Ra, 0x0001(zero)   ; \
    LDA  Ra, 0x8000(Ra)     ; / Ra = 0x00000000`00008000 ; bit 15
    LDAH Ra, 0x0001(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00010000 ; bit 16
    LDAH Ra, 0x0002(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00020000 ; bit 17
    LDAH Ra, 0x0004(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00040000 ; bit 18
    LDAH Ra, 0x0008(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00080000 ; bit 19
    LDAH Ra, 0x0010(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00100000 ; bit 20
    LDAH Ra, 0x0020(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00200000 ; bit 21
    LDAH Ra, 0x0040(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00400000 ; bit 22
    LDAH Ra, 0x0080(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`00800000 ; bit 23
    LDAH Ra, 0x0100(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`01000000 ; bit 24
    LDAH Ra, 0x0200(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`02000000 ; bit 25
    LDAH Ra, 0x0400(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`04000000 ; bit 26
    LDAH Ra, 0x0800(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`08000000 ; bit 27
    LDAH Ra, 0x1000(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`10000000 ; bit 28
    LDAH Ra, 0x2000(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`20000000 ; bit 29
    LDAH Ra, 0x4000(zero)   ;   Ra = 0x00000000`40000000 ; bit 30
    LDAH Ra, 0x8000(zero)   ;   Ra = 0xFFFFFFFF`80000000 ; bit 31

Bit 15. Ugh. Bit 15.

It’s the only one that requires two instructions to calculate the 32-bit mask in canonical form.

This means that if you have a bitfield, bit 15 is slightly more expensive than the others.

Bonus chatter: In an internal discussion of byte manipulation on the Alpha AXP, I happened to have written “Bit 15. Ugh. Bit 15.” Gov Maharaj (co-host of The Defrag Show and application compatibility master extraordinaire) told me, “That needs to be the title of a blog post.” So here it is.

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