Conversion of NGP-0 Coordinates to Device Specific Coordinates

J. Hansen

doi:10.17487/RFC0401

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This is a modified version of the Internet RFC suitable for machine-translating. Original version is available here: RFC401

UNKNOWN

Network Working Group                                 Jim Hansen
Request for Comment #401                              Center for Advanced
NIC #11923                                              Computation
Category:  D.6                                        University of Illinois
Updates:  RFC #387                                    October 23, 1972
Obsoletes: None

Conversion of NGP-0 Coordinates to Device ----------------------------------------- Specific Coordinates

                          --------------------

Conversion of NGP-0 coordinates to floating point PDP-10 coordinates was discussed in RFC #387. In general, however, it is undesirable to convert NGP coordinates to floating point coordinates because real devices require integer addressing. To this end, a means is described to convert NGP coordi- nates to integer coordinates in the range zero to M, where M is the maximum address of the device screen on a machine using 2's complement arithmetic. It would not, however, be difficult to modify this algorithm to operate on machines using one's complement or sign-magnitude arithmetic.

First consider the NGP coordinate format:

                   +--+-----------+
                   |  |   n       |
                   +--+-----------+
                    s ^  FRACTION

i g n

Where the sign occupies the most significant bit of the coordinate followed by bits of numerical information (initial implementation of NGP requires N=15). Negative numbers are represented by 2's complement. Conversion to device coordinates is accomplished by:

D = S * f + S

Where D =>integer device coordinate
S =>scaling factor (typically M/2) f =>NGP fractional coordinate

Let us rewrite this as:

n n
D = S*(2 *f)/2 +S

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Now factor S into two terms:

I
S= Q * 2

Where Q is an odd integer and I is an integer.

When: I n n
D = Q * 2 *(2 *f)/2 +S

I-n n
= Q * 2 *(2 *f) +S
n
The factor (2 *f) is represented in 2's complement form simply by extending the sign bit of f into the upper portion of the computer word, If Q = 1 (as it would be with many devices), it can be ignored. If Q >< 1, we may console ourselves that an integer multiply is faster on most machines than a floating point multiply. In fact, on a PDP-10, this multiply can usually be performed with no access to memory since Q is usually small.

I-n
We are now left with the 2 factor. This can be accomplished with an arithmetic shift left by (I-n) or an arithmetic shift right by (n-I) as is appropriate. The offset factor, S, may now be added using an integer add.

The procedure for converting NGP coordinates to integer device coordinates is then:

1. move coordinate to a register and extend sign 2. integer multiply by Q (if necessary) 3. arithmetic shift left by (I-n) 4. integer add S

This procedure would generally be much faster than:

1. move coordinate to register and extend sign 2. float fractional coordinate 3. floating point multiply 4. floating point add 5. conversion to fixed point

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ] [ into the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the ] [ direction of Alex McKenzie. 1/97 ]

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