Darren New wrote:

> How many machine instructions do you think it takes to execute an 
> interpreter for a machine instruction?

How about, hmm, "A LOT"?

The IA32 instruction set is a twisted tangle with no reason or rhyme to 
it. The op-codes follow no particular pattern. The instruction lengths 
very widely. What with MMX, 3D NOW!, SSE, SSE2 and so on, there's dozens 
of registers of all different shapes and sizes. And we haven't even 
talked about all the emulation required for the I/O devices...

> A hundred maybe, but a million?

Last time I checked, the IA32 instruction set is *very* complex. I doubt 
it's got any simpler since then...

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