Re: Still dreaming of GS/OS 7.0

[steve@dosius.zzn.com (Dosius)]

mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon) wrote in message news:<20030421163058.18876.00000381@mb-m24.aol.com>...
> Dosius wrote:
> 
> >I, personally, think an '816/3 is fine for GS/OS, but an '816/20 (� la
> >the SuperCPU) would be nicer *g*. Even better would be an '816 with a
> >thunk to 32-bit mode *g*
> 
> From the Hacker's Dictionary:
> 
> thunk /thuhnk/ n. 
> 
> 1. [obs.]"A piece of coding which provides an address", according to
> P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks in 1961 as a way of binding
> actual parameters to their formal definitions in Algol-60 procedure
> calls. If a procedure is called with an expression in the place of a
> formal parameter, the compiler generates a thunk which computes
> the expression and leaves the address of the result in some standard
> location. 2. Later generalized into: an expression, frozen together with
> its environment, for later evaluation if and when needed (similar to what
> in techspeak is called a `closure'). The process of unfreezing these
> thunks is called `forcing'. 3. A stubroutine, in an overlay programming
> environment, that loads and jumps to the correct overlay. Compare
> 'trampoline'. 4. People and activities scheduled in a thunklike manner.
> "It occurred to me the other day that I am rather accurately modeled
> by a thunk -- I frequently need to be forced to completion." -- para-
> phrased from a plan file.
> 
> I'm curious about what meaning you attach to "thunk".
> -michael
> 
> Check out amazing quality 8-bit Apple sound on my
> Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

None: this is the meaning I attach to it.
Sample from http://lowendpc.com/ge/2001/1106.html

Protected mode on the 386 and up is 32-bits, even with a 16-bit
operating system like DOS/Win3.x. Data is shoved around 32 bits at a
time, greatly enhancing the overall speed of the system. The fly in
the 32-bit ointment was the 16-bit nature of Windows and its DOS
foundation. Every time the system had to read from or write to the
hard drive, it had to "thunk"* down from 32-bit to the 16-bit Real
Mode to transfer the data. Enabling 32-bit disk and file access in
Windows For Workgroups 3.11 eliminated that constant mode switching
for a healthy improvement in speed.

*Thunking is a computer term used to describe a change in the number
of bits being processed at a time. For a 386 or higher CPU to access a
16-bit ISA card it must thunk down to 16 bits and wait more cycles for
two 16-bit chunks of data to arrive for processing. Then it must thunk
up to 32 bits to process the data.

*end quote*

-uso.