Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!deimos.cis.ksu.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!aglew From: aglew@oberon.csg.uiuc.edu (Andy Glew) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: CDC Scoreboard reference (was flt pt reg renaming) Message-ID: Date: 15 Mar 90 15:02:07 GMT References: <76700171@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <11334@encore.Encore.COM> <36880@mips.mips.COM> <683@halley.UUCP> Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News) Organization: University of Illinois, Computer Systems Group Lines: 27 In-Reply-To: lcw@halley.UUCP's message of 14 Mar 90 01:19:47 GMT In article <36880@mips.mips.COM> mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes: >One more time: calling load-interlocks scoreboards is just marketing >silliness, confusing, and contradictory to terminology long-used >in computer architecture. >Jonathan Smith recently posted a reference to one of the original >360/91 papers that describe REAL scoreboards, and maybe somebody >will post a reference to one of the descriptions of the CDC machines >that have them. Umm, usually the term "scoreboard" is reserved for Thornton's work at CDC, with the less aggressive approach used by Cray, etc. Tomasulo's work on the 360/91 is usually considered to go beyond scoreboarding. IE. scoreboarding is not the ultimate in aggressive scheduling. At least not in the terminology that I have seen applied in this field for 8 years. (Personally, I tend to use the term "Tomasulo" to describe the most aggressive approaches, that let you skip O->I, I->O, and O-> dependencies, as well as functional unit busy conditions, etc. Many researchers, however, harp on the limitations in Tomasulo's implementation (the Common Data Bus) and invent their own terms for the ultimate...) -- Andy Glew, aglew@uiuc.edu