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From: jerry@TALOS.UUCP (Jerry Gitomer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Computers for users not programmers
Message-ID: <1098@TALOS.UUCP>
Date: 14 Feb 91 19:24:40 GMT
References: <3159:Feb1213:56:3091@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <3194@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Organization: NPRI, Alexandria VA
Lines: 41

davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes:

:In article <3159:Feb1213:56:3091@kramden.acf.nyu.edu: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:

:| Some people think that if Fortran and C don't support an operation, it's
:| a waste to put the operation into new chips.

:  Making the assumption that (a) a vendor is selling into the
:workstation market, and (b) that market is mostly C and FORTRAN, why
:would it be a mistake to omit those features, accessible from assembler,
:COBOL, and PL/I, and either use the chip space for something useful to
:the majority of the users, or save the space and cut the cost of the
:chip?

:  I don't question that some applications need to do multiprecision
:arithmentic, or that these features make it easier, but a vendor is not
:out to develop an elegant chip which satisfies every need at the expense
:of being competitive in price/performance.

:  I've written packages like that on machines with the instructions you
:mention, and it's very useful and quite fast. I've also done them in C
:for machines which didn't have hardware support, and it's slow but
:portable.

When I was with Sperry (now Unisys) we compared the performance of two of
our systems, a V77 mini and a small mainframe (a 90/30). The mini was 9
times faster running our standard FORTRAN benchmark and the mainframe much
faster running our standard COBOL benchmark!

The V77 reflected the desires and needs of an arithmetic oriented customer
base beating on the hardware designers for three (hardware) generations
while the 90/30 reflected the desires and needs of business data processors
beating on the designers for even more generations.

The moral of the story is: If a vendor perceives a market segement to be
large enough (this varies from vendor to vendor) they will design a machine
tailored to that market segment.
-- 
Jerry Gitomer at National Political Resources Inc, Alexandria, VA USA
I am apolitical, have no resources, and speak only for myself.
Ma Bell (703)683-9090      (UUCP:  ...{uupsi,vrdxhq}!pbs!npri6!jerry