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From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Computers for users not programmers
Message-ID: <14390@lanl.gov>
Date: 12 Feb 91 20:25:26 GMT
References: <1991Feb12.181720.26323@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
Lines: 18

From article <1991Feb12.181720.26323@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>, by xxremak@csduts1.lerc.nasa.gov (David A. Remaklus):
> [...]
> How about CRAY?  The last time I checked, it was still strictly a word
> machine.  Manipulating byte oriented data with 64 bit word oriented
> hardware seems kind of slow to me.  It may be a fast processor, but
> one would think that byte oriented instructions would sure make text
> oriented processing go a lot faster.

Well, many character functions can be carried out on the Cray very
fast.  I've implemented move, translate (like upper- to lower-case),
scan (for first occurrence of a given character), etc..  They all
work on vectors full of packed characters.  The asymptotic speed
(speed of operation ignoring setup time) varies depending on the
operation being done.  Moving characters goes at one-eighth of a
clock per character.  Translating goes at about seven-eighths of
a clock per character.  Seems fast to me.

J. Giles