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From: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 80-20
Message-ID: <6150@drilex.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 89 18:08:17 GMT
References: <6927@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1989Nov12.020742.8838@utzoo.uucp> <1989Nov12.183132.3120@world.std.com>
Reply-To: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA
Lines: 41

In article <1989Nov12.183132.3120@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>
>In article <6927@pt.cs.cmu.edu> lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes:
>>If DEC would document exactly what's in that 80%, then VAX compiler
>>writers could FINALLY settle the subject of choosing between
>>different instruction sequences.

   As an aside, I suspect that all of compiler writers that DEC cares
   about (those that work for DEC), already have access to all the
   instruction timing information that they want ...

>If you want a good feel for the 80% look at the code generated by
>VAX/VMS Fortran. It uses far less than 80% of the instructions as far
>as I can tell (perhaps more in rare cases, hmmm, what %age of the
>instructions for what %age of generated code...)
>ANYHOW...sorry...it was an interesting exercise, go take a look at
>generated VMS/Fortran code (it's very good) and you'll see immediately
>the kind of things which are fast on a Vax.
>        -Barry Shein
>
>Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade         | bzs@world.std.com

From what I saw of the announcement, the 9000's are targeted at 'business',
not 'scientific', applications.  If you really want to know that 80%
set, I'd look at the output of VAX/VMS COBOL, plus any other languages
they have now for transaction processing.

I went to a user's group meeting last week where a person was astounded
that I didn't use COBOL.  (This was for users of Unisys (formerly Burroughs)
computers.)  The average application on these machines does transaction
processing, with 100s, if not 1000s of 'terminals' doing order-entry,
ATM processing, or some such.

There's a whole different world out there, which most Usenetters would
have trouble even conceiving of.

And that world is where the 9000s are targeted.
-- 
Craig Jackson
dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com
{bbn,ll-xn,axiom,redsox,atexnet,ka3ovk}!drilex!{dricej,dricejb}