So on architecture which has a "negate" operator, then the efficient method of storing the address may just be to use that operator on the Program Counter. Without knowing the exact reference you're referring to, I can't say whether that's the correct explanation.
Thanks! What I’m reading refers to the original implementation (on the EDSAC).
This is presumably the source (that I’m too lazy to check rn): Wheeler, D.J., "The EDSAC Programming Systems," in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 34-40, 1992.86
Ah, gotcha. I think your reference has slightly misunderstood, or you've slightly misunderstood it, if you look at the code from that paper you can see that what it's storing into the accumulator isn't the return address but the command 'A m F'. A is 11100 in the character table of the EDSAC2 so...
... this is actually a negative number. The command 'G n F' is a conditional jump that jumps if the accumulator is negative. Once it reaches the subroutine it adds a pre-calculated constant to 'A m F' to convert it into 'E m+2 F' and stores it into the address at the end so that it will now return.
So the return address is in location 3? The snippet doesn’t show this. But then why put the A in the accumulator to begin with? Now I’m confused…
No, location 3 is used to store the number that needs to be added to 'A m F' to turn it into 'E m+2 F'. The accumulator gets the entire command 'A m F' stored into it, this means when you add the number stored in 3 to the accumulator it can be stored as the return op without further manipulation.
Command codes in EDSAC 2 were stored as a 5 bit command code, a spare bit, a 10 bit address, and a final bit indicating whether the command was 'F' (short) or 'D' (long). So, if you're calling a subroutine at position 10, you'd store the return address with 'A 10 F' which is '11100 0 0000001010 0'
And you need to return from the subroutine function with 'E 12 F' (because you want to skip before the accumulator and the jump instruction you return to the stored value + 2), which is '00011 0 0000001100 0'. Location 3 is used to store the difference between these two values which is always...
... the same 'U 2 F' (00111 0 00000 00010 0). Add this to 'A 10 F' and you get 'E 12 F' -- which, looking at it now, I think only works because of arithmetic overflow.
Ok, thanks. I think I got it: to get the return location we use the current line which was relocated so has the correct current program counter. The A instruction does this for us, and adds the contents of the current pc location which is the instruction A m. 1/ .
This is how we capture m, the current pc. In the subroutine we add the difference between A and E instructions (and m to m+2 to go the instruction after the jump) to get a return jump and plug it at the end of the subroutine. This is a constant value. 2/
Presumably E jumps on positive and G on negative unrelated to this, simply the way conditional branching was implemented way before subroutines were contemplated. 3/3
Correct. I'm not sure about the last point though. Wheeler mentions in the paper you referenced that they were thinking about subroutines as early as '48 and so I think it more likely that the E/G distinction was included for more general use and the issue here just tolerated.
It seems that the G instruction jumps to the address in the accumulator only if it is negative. Need to investigate.
