MMIX-ARITH

Abstract

The subroutines below are used to simulate 64-bit MMIX arithmetic on an old-fashioned 32-bit computer—like the one the author had when he wrote MMIXAL and the first MMIX simulators in 1998 and 1999. All operations are fabricated from 32-bit arithmetic, including a full implementation of the IEEE floating point standard, assuming only that the C compiler has a 32-bit unsigned integer type.

Some day 64-bit machines will be commonplace and the awkward manipulations of the present program will look quite archaic. Interested readers who have such computers will be able to convert the code to a pure 64-bit form without difficulty, thereby obtaining much faster and simpler routines. Meanwhile, however, we can simulate the future and hope for continued progress.