My first real programming job entailed writing a blazingly macro assembler from scratch for the 6502, using a much slower (and non-macro) assembler from the vendor (Ohio Scientific, for those of a certain age).
I simulated the proposed hashing algorithm in FORTRAN at the community college I was attending, and found that it led to a lot of collisions for the base 6502 opcode set. When I pointed this out to my manager (who's still my friend 32+ years on), he made sure that I got my first raise.
I still have those listings and the original design documents around somewhere.
My first real programming job entailed writing a blazingly macro assembler from scratch for the 6502, using a much slower (and non-macro) assembler from the vendor (Ohio Scientific, for those of a certain age).
I simulated the proposed hashing algorithm in FORTRAN at the community college I was attending, and found that it led to a lot of collisions for the base 6502 opcode set. When I pointed this out to my manager (who's still my friend 32+ years on), he made sure that I got my first raise.
I still have those listings and the original design documents around somewhere.