Package unsafe's docs say:

The compiler handles a Pointer converted to a uintptr in the argument list of a call to a function implemented in assembly by arranging that the referenced allocated object, if any, is retained and not moved until the call completes, even though from the types alone it would appear that the object is no longer needed during the call.

That is, it handles an unsafe.Pointer converted to uintptr.

However, compiling this program with "go tool compile -live":

package p

import (
        "syscall"
        "unsafe"
)

func f() {
        p := new(byte)
        syscall.Syscall(syscall.SYS_READ, 0, uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(p)), 1)
}

func g() {
        p := unsafe.Pointer(new(byte))
        syscall.Syscall(syscall.SYS_READ, 0, uintptr(p), 1)
}

shows that only f ensures that the pointer is kept alive through the call to syscall.Syscall:

r.go:10:17: live at call to Syscall: .autotmp_1

This is because ordercall uses the IsPtr predicate, which only matches on normal Go pointers. It should actually use IsUnsafePtr.

/cc @ianlancetaylor