Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!spdcc!merk!alliant!lewitt
From: lewitt@Alliant.COM (Martin E. Lewitt)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: FPS 64 bit products (was VLIW Architecture)
Summary: What changes were made to the FPS architecture?
Keywords: VLIW
Message-ID: <3452@alliant.Alliant.COM>
Date: 8 Oct 89 09:15:30 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> <1989Oct7.165438.2533@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Reply-To: lewitt@alliant.Alliant.COM (Martin E. Lewitt)
Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA
Lines: 28

In article <1989Oct7.165438.2533@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes:
>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.

Thanx for the info.  

It's my understanding that some of the 64 bit products that FPS introduced
after I left in 1985, had a cleaned up instruction set, e.g., a write to 
table memory RAM no longer required the special I/O format instruction and
more registers were directly addressable.

Does anyone out there know:
   1) Was anything else "cleaned up" in the instruction set?
   2) Did this clean-up address the asymmetries mentioned in the
      Ellis book?
   3) Did the Fortran compiler ever change to use Table Memory RAM?
   4) Did the Fortran compiler ever change to use a trace scheduling
      algorithm?
                                just curious, thanx in advance.
-- 
Phone: (206) 931-8364			Martin E. Lewitt      My opinions are
Domain: lewitt@alliant.COM		2945 Scenic Dr. SE    my own, not my
UUCP: {linus|mit-eddie}!alliant!lewitt  Auburn, WA 98002      employer's.