[no subject]

[Nis at MIT-AI (H. Keith Nishihara)]

To: WELG at MIT-AI

the function %XBUS-READ seems to have been changed sometime
over the last month or two. In system 44.3 it returns bignums
(when some but not all of the high 8 bits of the 32. bit word are on)
rather than a 24. bit fixnum like it used to ... this has broken the ICON convolver
code when it tries to get negative 24 bit numbers off of the xbus.
  Ive made a clumsy fix to convert back to 24bit fixnums so the convolver code
should work now.  but it presumably will generate lots of bignum garbage in the process.  
  If this change to %xbus-read was intended, wouldnt it be better to give it a different name
so that the 24bit version could stay as documented? 
-- keith