On Jun 24, 2005, at 11:11 AM, Peter wrote:

> But that is history (once upon a time code storage was extremely
> expensive and nobody had optimising compilers). On most 8 bit micros
>  there were addressing modes for 'short' and 'long' distance of
> indirect objects. ... When storage became cheap the banking (and
> shadowing which is a form of banking) became obsolete and they are
> still used only for acceleration and in 'legacy' architectures...
>
> I do not know why Microchip chose to go with banking and paging 
> instead of making wider instruction words...

huh?  The PIC *is* a legacy architecture.  You see in the PIC18 and
dsPIC chips microchip's attempts to modernize the architecture without
losing "mindshare" or the value of accumulated expertise in the existing
PIC architectures.

We could debate the virtues of retaining an "obsolete" architecture
vs chasing the latest fads separately, but I think microchip's apparent
decision to focus on peripherals, pervasiveness, packaging, and 
usability
was *a* correct one...

BillW
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