🚀 go-pugleaf

>From article <1990Jan22.152652.7636@virtech.uucp>,
by jje@virtech.uucp (Jeremy J. Epstein):
> 
> Also, on IBM 360s (and hence on all 370 architecture systems) the
> op code for multiply was 5C, which was also the EBCDIC for '*'.
> Does anyone know if that was accidental, or coincidence?  Do other
> machines have neat opcodes like that?
>
Many of the early decimal machines had machine languages designed
this way.  Typically, these machines had a 6 bit byte addressable
memory, and stored one decimal digit per byte for arithmetic purposes.
Text was stored in something like a 6 bit BCD code, and it was common
for machine designers to make sure that the opcode for add was A, for
subtract S, for multiply M and for divide D.  Other instructions had
less convenient mnemonic opcodes, but all had some vague mnemonic value.
This was important because these machines were developed at about the
same time that various early efforts at automatic assembly were
being pursued, and the hardware designers didn't do their design
work under the assumption that assemblers (or higher level languages of
any kind) would be used.
					Doug Jones