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From: rhyde@berra.ucr.edu (randy hyde)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: RISC Machines
Message-ID: <9011@ucrmath.ucr.edu>
Date: 2 Oct 90 19:09:11 GMT
References: <8139.apple.net@pro-angmar> <37682@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <1990Oct2.083606.8401@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
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Reply-To: rhyde@berra.ucr.edu (randy hyde)
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>>> The 6502 tried to be a RISC before we knew what RISC meant...

Actually, the 6502 was trying to be a CISC before we knew what CISC meant!
You're comparing the instruction set of yesterday against todays instruction
sets and coming to the conclusion that the 6502 is a reduced instruction
set.  Actually, they did reduce the number of instructions  over its
contemporaries, but they did so be increasing the complexity of each
instruction (by adding lots of addressing modes).  BTW, the 6502 is *NOT*
a load/store architecture.  Load/store architectures only give the move
instructions (loads and stores) access to memory.  The 6502 was fairly
generous about letting most applicable instructions access memory.