Re: DecStation and 1.3.59 [was: Re: Load address of 1.3.59]

[Warner Losh <imp@village.org>]

: la   a0, dec_signon 
: 
: "la" is not an op code that shows up in either Mips Risc Architecture
: or the MIPs IV instruction set manual 

LA == Load Address.  It is a pseudo-op in gas.  It literally
translates to:

        lui     a0, %hi(dec_signon)
        addiu   a0, a0, %lo(dec_signon)

Which is effectively loading the address into a0.

I just discovered this because I was looking at a disassembled version
of rpc44.o to make sure that it mached rpc44.S (which it did, except
for things like this).  And now that I recall, I think there was email
about milo's disassembler that stated that it had been modified to
merge these two instructions into one.

Warner