PPC601 instruction set (was: Re: specific to Hartmut Kuptein)

[Chris Baker <cbaker@adrenalin.com>]

Phillip R. Jaenke <prj@mokole.nexbell.com> writes:

[...]

> I'll buy that, since upon closer inspection, the 'P' seems to typically
> indicate that it's a PCI bus system from further investigation. Still  
> haven't found any full specs on it. Question remains, is the 601 gonna 
> work? If the 601 is byte-for-byte assembly compatible with 603, I'd   
> say definitely, but the 601 predates the 603, which leads me to believe
> that there may be 603 instructions that aren't on the 601. Somebody have
> a 601 or specs so they can check into this?

IIRC, the 601 has *more* instructions than the 603, as it was supposed
to be compatible with IBM's POWER instruction set.  This ended up
causing a great deal of performance problems when the 603 came out,
since these instructions generated exceptions that were handled via
software.

It's been a while since I've looked into such things, though.  You
might want to check out Motorola's web site, as they have manuals for
all those chips available for download.

HTH,

cbb