Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!ncar!ico!vail!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: RISC vs CISC (rational discussion, not religious wars)
Message-ID: <1989Nov21.072257.19556@ico.isc.com>
Date: 21 Nov 89 07:22:57 GMT
References: <503@ctycal.UUCP> <2@zds-ux.UUCP> <508@ctycal.UUCP>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation
Lines: 22

ingoldsb@ctycal.UUCP (Terry Ingoldsby) writes:
> gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) writes:
> > But really, I'm beginning to think that the simplicity and speed of design
> > and testing is the really big win with RISC...
[other advantages to simplicity...]
> Exactly.  As long as getting to market 6 months faster than the other guy is
> the critical factor in marketing a design, then RISC will win.  Once the curve
> flattens, then timing will be far less important...

Depends on (a) how and (b) whether the curve flattens.  Even if we get off
the current roughly exponential curve (e.g., the MIPS "double per year"
goal) and drop way back to a linear growth, will that really let CISC come
close enough to say it's "caught up"?  Another way to look at it is to ask
whether, once RISC has held the lead for a while, there's any reason to go
back to CISC?  What does CISC have to offer, if performance somehow manages
to become a secondary consideration (which I have a hard time imagining)?
Will it become, as one might extrapolate from Terry's analogy to cars, a
competition over tailfins and chrome?  (This is less sarcastic and more
serious than it might seem at first.)
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...`Just say no' to mindless dogma.