Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!ncifcrf!lhc!usenet From: usenet@nlm.nih.gov (usenet news poster) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Speed Kills Message-ID: <1990Jun27.032824.5138@nlm.nih.gov> Date: 27 Jun 90 03:28:24 GMT References: <447@garth.UUCP> <4040@taux01.nsc.com> <502@garth.UUCP> Reply-To: states@tech.NLM.NIH.GOV (David States) Distribution: comp Organization: National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md. Lines: 19 In article <502@garth.UUCP> fouts@bozeman.ingr.com (Martin Fouts) writes: > >The underlying point behind the original posting was ... to try to get >some conversation going towards architectures which scale over time. > >It has been done once or twice in the past. IBM got a lot of milage >out of the 360 and Moto has done a reasonable job with the 68K. How >can we make those cases more common, rather than the exception? DEC has gotten 15 years out of VAX/VMS. How about the 8008/8088/80x86 line? SPARC and MIPS will be around for quite a while. The key seems to be achieving market success with an innovative design and then supporting upward compatability. Once you have a body of third party software depending on your architecture, it will live a long life. >-- >Martin Fouts David States