My results by JDK 1.6.0_03 (-server mode): time for 1st warm up: 1467 ms time for 2nd warm up: 1377 ms time for map[a & 0xFF]: 5195 ms time for map[a + 0x80]: 3588 ms time for inlined map[a & 0xFF]: 6046 ms time for inlined map[a + 0x80]: 3595 ms I don't really understand, why inlined code is slower ?????????? -Ulf