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Idle Loop Optimized

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the more-efficient-use-of-clock-time dept.

seebs writes "Every so often someone makes a joke about optimizing the idle loop, but this article actually does it. " It's about time too- that process has been eating up clock cycles for to long.

12 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. My idle loop is already optimized by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I run Gentoo.

  2. hah by Xaggroth · · Score: 2, Funny

    finally.. a real post

  3. Welcome to First Post Day! by sterno · · Score: 5, Funny

    Say, I'm curious, are you guys scripting this to post a new article every 5 minutes, or did you find some cheap outsourced labor to pound them out in real time?

    --
    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
  4. Grammar! by darth_MALL · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Every so often someone makes a joke about optimizing the idle loop, but this article actually does it."

    The article does what? Makes the joke, or optimizes the idle loop?

  5. World's Smallest Slashdot Effect Found by Dynamoo · · Score: 4, Funny
    After a huge run of articles, the world record for the lowest number of hits on a website due to the usually massive Slashdot was recorded.

    The webmaster in question said "yeah, I noticed a couple of extra visitors, but my TRS80-based web server coped just fine.".

    --
    Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
  6. Going for the record? by chill · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Show some restraint. It isn't necessary to publish EVERY LAST APRIL FOOLS JOKE found on the Internet. Give it a rest already!

    -Charles

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  7. I can do even better.... by popo · · Score: 4, Funny



    Today at work I was in a spectacularly smooth (and remarkably energy efficient) idle-loop.

    Fortunately the loop was terminated automatically at 5pm.

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
  8. Yeah, but.... by cmsavage · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...have they implemented multicore support for greater speed and accuracy?

  9. Where is my TPS report? by neckdeepinspecialsau · · Score: 2, Funny

    Um could you optimize the idle loop? Yeah... that would be great.

  10. It's not all a joke by songbo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    True, the article is partly an april fool's joke. What would you get by optimizing the idle loop? More cycles of the idle loop running in your idle time! But the 2nd half of the article discusses Altivec instructions. And seriously, there's useful information to be found there if you're writing Altivec code.

    --
    There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary, and those that don't.
  11. Brilliant! by steveha · · Score: 2, Informative

    I love this sort of thing. The basic idea is silly, but he manages to show some useful stuff and make some valid points while exploring it.

    I remember in the 1980's there was a great article on how to add a GOSUB keyword to the FORTH language. The article evolved the code through four different versions, and each one showed something cool and useful about FORTH. Well, maybe not the last one:

    : GOSUB ; IMMEDIATE

    For those of you who don't grok FORTH, this defines a keyword called GOSUB that does nothing, and does it at compile time so it doesn't get compiled in either. (The article noted that GOSUB FOO is the same thing as just plain old FOO, since FORTH functions are always called as subroutines anyway.)

    Around the same time, I saw an article on how to build your own 64KB memory: take a breadboard, and 65536 8-bit flip-flop chips, plus a 1:65536 multiplexer and a 65536:1 demultiplexer for address selection! The article helpfully calculated how many Watts of power it would take to drive all these chips (a LOT) but it didn't say where one might find a multiplexer or demultiplexer with over 65000 pins on it.

    steveha

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  12. Another problem by old_unicorn · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm also worried about the lack of a decent defragmenter for the unused portions of my hard disk....

    --
    ***You learn something Every day. And then you die.***