[LLVMdev] Virtrual instruction set was: re:compile linux kernel

Samuel Crow
Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:11:09 -0000

Hello Jonathan,

Actually it is the second project that I know of that used the term Virtual to
describe the intermediate instruction set.  Virtual Processor was part of a
failed attempt by the Tao Group and Amiga Inc. to bring a common set of runtimes
and instruction sets to handheld devices (called AmigaDE).  Later, certain
optimizations appeared in Java allowing it to catch on instead.  In an effort to
minimize their losses, Amiga released a subset of it with a hosted operating
system called AmigaAnywhere and a few titles were released on it.

To make a long story short, VP Assembler was replaced by some GCC
cross-compilers and renamed AmigaAnywhere 2.0 .  For more information about
this, refer to http://amiga.com/developers/ .

This is trivia however as there isn't even a Wikipedia article about VP
Assembler now.

--Sam

--- On Mon, 9/29/08, Jonathan S. Shapiro <shap at eros-os.com> wrote:

> From: Jonathan S. Shapiro <shap at eros-os.com>
> Subject: Re: [LLVMdev] compile linux kernel
> To: "LLVM Developers Mailing List" <llvmdev at cs.uiuc.edu>
> Date: Monday, September 29, 2008, 4:53 AM
> Watching this thread, it occurs to me that the "V"
> in "LLVM" is creating
> confusion. So far as I know, LLVM is the first project to
> use "virtual"
> to refer to the instruction set of the intermediate form. I
> understand
> why this labeling made sense (sort of), but it was
> unfortunate. The
> machine is abstract, not virtual, and the use of
> "virtual" here is so
> out of keeping with any other use of the term that it
> really does
> generate confusion.
>
> Is this worth a FAQ entry?
>
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