Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!yale!mfci!colwell
From: colwell@mfci.UUCP (Robert Colwell)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ERISC???
Message-ID: <1087@m3.mfci.UUCP>
Date: 17 Oct 89 12:51:03 GMT
References: <16190@vail.ICO.ISC.COM> <2393@gmu90x.UUCP>
Sender: colwell@mfci.UUCP
Reply-To: colwell@mfci.UUCP (Robert Colwell)
Organization: Multiflow Computer Inc., Branford Ct. 06405
Lines: 31

In article <2393@gmu90x.UUCP> rmiller@gmu90x.UUCP (Richard Miller) writes:
>In article <16190@vail.ICO.ISC.COM> rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) writes:
>>This week's EE Times features a front-page article about IBM's forthcoming
>>line of RISC machines based on the `America' processor, presented at ICCD.
>>The article mentions that the architecture has 184 instructions!...
>...
>I believe that the only reason that the term RISC is associated with this
>architecture is for the marketing mileage that it gives them.  Perhaps
>their efforts to redefine term are a token effort to assuage the confusion
>of those that can see through this somewhat blatant marketing ploy.

It might help to consider a few more facts associated with this machine.
The first is that the guy who started the whole RISC juggernaut was John
Cocke, who was (and is) at IBM, and who was also involved (at least initially)
with this America processor.  The second is that the papers on the IBM 801
which enunciated the principles embodied therein don't emphasize the same
things that the research efforts at Berkeley & Stanford did, so it's not
that surprising that they don't religiously follow the tenets espoused
by them.

On the other hand, you could have a point.  It just seems kinda weird to
accuse the guys who started all this of mere marketing ploys.  Besides,
if the machine is as fast as they say, and if it doesn't qualify as a RISC
(under some hypothetical reasonable definition of RISC), then it would
seem some interesting (and undoubtedly amazingly inflammatory) conclusions
might present themselves...

Bob Colwell               ..!uunet!mfci!colwell
Multiflow Computer     or colwell@multiflow.com
31 Business Park Dr.
Branford, CT 06405     203-488-6090