Xref: utzoo comp.arch:20883 comp.lang.misc:6630 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!exodus!exodus-bb!khb From: khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman fpgroup) Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Computers for users not programmers Message-ID: Date: 15 Feb 91 18:31:21 GMT References: <3159:Feb1213:56:3091@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <1991Feb12.192725.21029@Think.COM> <1087@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> <1991Feb15.151910.5365@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM Followup-To: comp.arch Organization: Sun MegaSystems Lines: 32 In-reply-to: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu's message of 15 Feb 91 15:19:10 GMT >Mr. Bierman apparently misunderstands: these thinsg will do NO GOOD Mr. McDonald is missing my point; perhaps I should have been more explicit. There has been a long running discussion (or set of flame wars ;>) in this arena which boils down to: 1) I have these special things I want. 2) designers put in even less support, because usage statistics indicate that they go unused. 3) Thus life gets worse and worse. A standard MODULE would provide the functionality everywhere. If it gets used, there would be effort made to make the implementation efficient, it can be hand coded by the vendor, etc. At the very least, it provides a way for folks to actually measure how much having special instructions in hw would benefit. c++, f90 and other languages can be leveraged in this fashion. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Keith H. Bierman kbierman@Eng.Sun.COM | khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM SMI 2550 Garcia 12-33 | (415 336 2648) Mountain View, CA 94043