Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
>> It can do push and pop in single instruction cycles.  I don't see
>> what else it would have to do to qualify for being a "hardware"
>> stack.
>
> In this context, size?

His assertion was about it being a hardware stack or not.  As for size,
since a data stack on a PIC 18 implemented with a FSR and its auto
increment/decrement registers can address any contiguous chunk of memory
without bank boundary issues, the size limitation is all of user RAM on most
PIC 18.

> This is in the context of C compilers and
> re-entrant functions, which typically means that all data is on the
> stack. This requires that besides the stack being a "hardware" stack,

No it doesn't.  First, C automatic variables need not be implemented on a
data stack, although that is often a convenient method on machines that have
appropriate supporting hardware.  Second, whether using a data stack or not,
this stack need not be implemented in hardware.  Your arguments are
therefore orthagonal to the original point.


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