Re: life extension of old computers thanks to opensource Contiki

["Peter de Vroomen" <peterv[at][spamblock]jaytown[dot]com>]

> Learning to code in ARM assembler is by no means a useless skill, as it
> is directly applicable to modern-day engineering tasks.

No, of course not, but optimizing for a RISC processor is simply more
challenging than optimizing for a CISC processor. If you want to learn
assembly, it's best to start with a CISC processor, learn the basics, and
then step up to the RISC processor.

Hand-optimization will allways be needed, and a good programmer can probably
optimize the code better than a compiler can. But hand-optimization only
applies to small pieces of the code, like Interrupt Service Routines.
Generally a program consists of more than just an ISR :).

And about 'RISC architecture'... Of course these days the differences
between RISC and CISC are pretty muddy. A Pentium 4 processor has all the
characteristics of a RISC processor, but it still has a CISC instruction
set. So does the AVR. The PIC, however, has an instruction set that is
really RISC. Very limited, but every instruction is executed very fast.
Often you need more than one instruction to accomplish something a CISC
processor does in one instruction.

PeterV