Re: Early-2014 Macbook Air and Linux Mint Cinnamon

On 24/06/2026 11:07, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2026-06-24 03:30, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Sun, 21 Jun 2026 09:35:34 +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
>>
>>> This thread for some reason gave me 40 year old 6502 vibes, where the
>>> only fully usable register is called the accumulator.
>>
>> “Accumulator” was a common synonym for “register” in the early days.
>>
>> E.g. I think the PDP-10 had 4 accumulators. Their assembly-language
>> names were AC0, AC1, AC2, AC3.
> 
> An accumulator is not a register. It is different, you can do operations 
> on it. Maybe on current processors the difference is not that big.
> 
You can do operations on all registers too.
The accumulator is the register where the *results* of those operations 
typically get stored.

Bit not always.
 From my days of 8088 assembler

PUSH BX  has no effect on the AX accumulator. Only on general memory and 
the stack pointer

Some processors did not have 'accumulators' as such, any register could 
be used...

"The Motorola 68000 features sixteen 32-bit general-purpose registers 
(eight data and eight address), a 32-bit Program Counter (PC), and a 
16-bit Status Register (SR). It is designed with a highly orthogonal 
architecture where registers operate interchangeably for most data and 
address calculations"


-- 
     “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the 
greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most 
obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of 
conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which 
they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by 
thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

     ― Leo Tolstoy