Stack machines vs. RISC, a modern comparison? (opens in new tab)

I think that goes back to ARMv4 or maybe earlier. It makes implementing a bytecode interpreter/dispatcher utterly trivial in ARM world - almost as if it were designed to do that from day 1. This: ldrb r0,[regPC],#1 @ Fetch byte at regPC, Increment regPC ldr pc,[ptrJ, r0, lsl #2] @ Take byte in r0, << 2, add to ptrJ @ fetch that word, transfer into PC. (regPC and ptrJ are aliases for other general purpose registers) …is 2 instructions that per...