Enforce In-order Execution of I/O

Enforce In-order Execution of I/O, or EIEIO, is an assembly language instruction used on the PowerPC computer processor which prevents one memory or I/O operation from starting until the previous memory or I/O operation completed. This instruction is needed as I/O controllers on the system bus require that accesses follow a particular order, while the CPU reorders accesses to optimize memory bandwidth usage. [1]

Notice the pun in the name; the old children's song goes "Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!". In the book Expert C Programming, Peter van den Linden comments that this instruction is "Probably designed by some old farmer named McDonald" and "There’s nothing wrong with well-placed whimsy."[2]

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-06-29. Retrieved 2013-06-04.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. Linden, Peter van der. Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets (Prentice Hall, 1994) pg.xxii


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.