Reminds me of optimizing microcode back in uni... From the reference implementation of 134 microinstructions down to 61, and it was far more cycle-efficient as

Reminds me of optimizing microcode back in uni... From the reference implementation of 134 microinstructions down to 61, and it was far more cycle-efficient as well (progressive decoding and Huffman encoded micro representation given sample programs). Since it was a contest for two goals of extra credit, people were pissed that our team captured both. It took about 30 hours to implement. Microinstructione are like a CPU's firmware which implements the external-facing macroinstruction set into a simpler set of microinstructions which coordinate various internal state.