> Processor operations have to be strongly typed, by definition.
Individual instructions assume the data they operate on is of a particular type, but it doesn't differentiate data types in memory. Here's an example where I forced the C compiler to treat the bit pattern of two floats as integers, then add those values as integers. The result is, of course, absolutely meaningless.
float dx = 1.0;
float dy = 1.0;
int *pix = &dx;
int *piy = &dy;
int isum = *pix + *piy;
float *pdsum = &isum;
printf("%d\n", isum);
printf("%f\n", *pdsum);
That's just how processors work, right? Apparently it doesn't have to be that way. From my understanding of the iAPX 432, attempts were made to encode object types in hardware.
Individual instructions assume the data they operate on is of a particular type, but it doesn't differentiate data types in memory. Here's an example where I forced the C compiler to treat the bit pattern of two floats as integers, then add those values as integers. The result is, of course, absolutely meaningless.
That's just how processors work, right? Apparently it doesn't have to be that way. From my understanding of the iAPX 432, attempts were made to encode object types in hardware.