2 Questions: Saving Worlds, Optimizing worlds, loading microcode error tables (3! 3 questions....)

[Barry Margolin <barmar@THINK.COM>]

    Date: Tue, 22 Aug 89 12:11 EDT
    From: pan@athena.pangaro.dialnet.symbolics.com (Paul Pangaro)

    OK, so I am finally doing :Optimize World, which is a great thrill and
    makes me feel good. But, what are people's experiences? Is it worth the
    time and FEP space? Does one notice anything different in paging really?

There's been mixed reaction to it here.  I use it when making our site
base world, but the person who builds worlds with our CM software
generally doesn't because of the extra disk space (10-20% expansion on
20-30MB worlds).

    Also, when you save a world you get all kinds of "Optimizing flavor
    handlers, Optimizing compiled functions, etc..." Is that the same stuff?
    Is it part of what Optimize World does?

I think they are a small subset of the kinds of optimizations that
Optimize World does.  Optimize World seems to do lots of analysis of
function call references to get callers and callees on the same pages
(when it's done it prints a report of the result of this analysis and
rearrangement).

    Finally (nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition...) why does the Save
    World cause microcode error tables to be loaded? Why is it trying to
    load every single one for the 3600? (3600-mic, 3600-FPA-mic,.....) 

The world needs to have ALL the error tables loaded, not just the ones
for the processor model that the world was built on.  You can save a
world on a 3600 and then load it on a 3630, so all the possible error
tables are loaded in when you save it, so that it won't have to load the
error table at boot time (worlds are usually booted more often than
saved).

    Also, this is a bug, because although my system was once a 3600, it is
    now a 3675, since I have PE video and the IFU. Something somewhere is
    reported it is still a 3600, but it isnt cause that microcode (e.g.,
    3600-mic.mic) wont run. Anybody know what is going on here? In the
    interests of purity, only, my question comes ---- I presume there is no
    hardship in loading these extra error tables....

I don't think a 3600 with PE Video is the same as a 3670.  It still has
a 3600 backplane and nanofep, for instance.  However, since all the
processor boards are 367x boards, it needs to use 367x microcode.

                                                barmar