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From: marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why The Move To RISC Architectures?  ('386 vs. RISC)
Message-ID: <1990Mar20.233504.4946@seri.gov>
Date: 20 Mar 90 23:35:04 GMT
References: <28011@cup.portal.com>
Sender: news@seri.gov (news [NO CHARGE])
Organization: Solar Energy Research Institute
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Will@cup.portal.com (Will E Estes) writes:

>Finally, why is everyone so excited about RISC?  Why the move to
>simplicity in microprocessor instruction sets?  You would think
>that the trend would be just the opposite - toward more and more
>complex instruction sets - in order to increase the execution
>speed of very high-level instructions by putting them in silicon
>and in order to make implementation of high-level language
>constructs easier.

Just a wild guess.  Hardware guys like RISC, software guys like CISC.
RISC puts the work on the shoulders of the software folks.  It's easier
to impliment RISC in hardware.  If I were developing software in
assembler, I'd probably hate RISC.  It is probably harder to write a
compiler for RISC.  If you use high-level languages, you may not care.
Users probably don't care unless one costs more for the same application
performance (which is all that really counts).
--
Marshall L. Buhl, Jr.                EMAIL: marshall@wind55.seri.gov
Senior Computer Engineer             VOICE: (303)231-1014
Wind Research Branch                 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO  80401-3393
Solar Energy Research Institute      Solar - safe energy for a healthy future