Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!emory!hubcap!mark
From: mark@hubcap.clemson.edu (Mark Smotherman)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Letterman's top ten (was re: UNIX)
Message-ID: <11635@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 15 Nov 90 15:56:11 GMT
References: <4876@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Organization: Clemson University, Clemson, SC
Lines: 29

by chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano):
>> And to keep this
>> thread valid for comp.arch, what were David Letterman's Top Ten computer
>> architectures?
> 
> Ed Borasky's Top Ten Computer Architectures:
> 
> 1. Babbage's Analytical Engine (first computer)
> ...

You folks must not watch David Letterman.  I doubt he would give a
serious list for "top ten", rather it would be something like ...

1. A Honeywell mainframe (6000?) with extra bits in the floating-point
   accumulator for more precision in intermediate calculations - but
   with no way to save these in memory.  Thus they will disappear
   at random, depending upon interrupts and context switches [1, p. 137].
   (Ever thought of floating-point expression evaluation as being a
   critical section in need of interrupt disabling???)
2. ...

Followups to folklore group?

--
[1] R. Dewar and M. Smosna, Microprocessors: A Programmer's View,
    McGraw-Hill, 1990.
-- 
Mark Smotherman, Comp. Sci. Dept., Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634
INTERNET: mark@hubcap.clemson.edu    UUCP: gatech!hubcap!mark