Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!know!samsung!munnari.oz.au!sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au!spam!wvenable From: wvenable@spam.ua.oz (Bill Venables) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Acronyms. Is is `1 MIP' or `1 MIPS'? Message-ID: <312@spam.ua.oz> Date: 27 Jun 90 13:18:11 GMT References: <+I84:_@xds13.ferranti.com> <1990Jun27.014943.27951@sq.sq.com> Organization: Statistics, Pure and Applied Maths, University of Adelaide Lines: 28 In article <1990Jun27.014943.27951@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: >Words change. "Laser" is an acronym (light amplification by >stimulated emission of radiation), but the verb "lase" has been >created from it by back-formation. [..] I don't think I wish to know that! >[..] >If I choose [whimsically] to define a unit called the MIP (plural, MIPS) >defined as 1 million instructions per second, where's the harm? > No harm at all. Noone suggested there was. But if you want to push "MIPS" past an acronym into a class 1 noun, like "laser" say, why not drop the case a notch? Anyway enough of this. Let me ask a more serious question. Since the original machine used to define the 1 mips standard was a CISC machine, (the VAX 11/780 I believe), does the unit really have much meaning for the now more common RISC machines? What is 1 million instructions, anyway? How should one realistically compare computing power on radically different architectures? -- Bill Venables, Dept. Statistics, | Email: wvenable@spam.ua.oz.au Univ. of Adelaide, South Australia. | Phone: +61 8 228 5412