Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!xanth!mcnc!decvax!ima!esegue!johnl
From: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: VLIW Architecture
Keywords: VLIW
Message-ID: <1989Oct7.165438.2533@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Date: 7 Oct 89 16:54:38 GMT
References: <251FCB3F.12366@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> <1050@m3.mfci.UUCP> <13050@pur-ee.UUCP> <1630@l.cc.purdue.edu> <1989Oct5.025841.2046@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> <3449@alliant.Alliant.COM>
Reply-To: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA
Lines: 18

In article <3449@alliant.Alliant.COM> lewitt@Alliant.COM (Martin Lewitt) writes:
>Ouch!!  Why don't the Floating Point System's AP120B and FPS-164 processors
>qualify as VLIW? ...
>4) Both were installed on the Yale campus by 1985 ...

They were indeed there, excuse me, my mind curdled.  (The fact that I never
used either of them while I was there may have something to do with it.)
Ellis discusses the FPS-164 in his book.  He calls it an LIW, kind of a
predecessor to a VLIW.  It's a horizontally microcoded machine rather than a
RISC with a lot of parallel functional units.  The trace scheduling compiler
used for VLIWs is quite different from the one used for the FPS.  Someone did
try trace scheduling for the FPS, but gave up because the assymetry of the
architecture made it very hard.  There are several pages in Ellis' book that
talk about this.
-- 
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl, Levine@YALE.edu
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe