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From: lm@slovax.Eng.Sun.COM (Larry McVoy)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: RISC vs CISC (was Re: Low End NeXTs)
Message-ID: <537@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 8 Apr 91 00:42:34 GMT
References: <4753@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> <34936@athertn.Atherton.COM> <27fa3350.6bc2@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> <1991Apr03.232400.1560@kithrup.COM> <1991Apr7.064855.25469@zoo.toronto.edu>
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In article <1991Apr7.064855.25469@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Or for a *really* straight comparison, due to John Mashey I think, compare
>the i860 to the i486:  same tools, same process, same chip size, roughly
>the same release time... and the RISC machine is faster, much faster, in
>every way.

I respect Henry, despite his annoying signatures, but I can't agree
with this comparison.  The i860 is, to the best of my knowledge, a
clean start.  The i486 is carrying baggage from all the way back to
8080's.  (I personally think the i486 is a cool chip, if you look
closely, it is quite RISC like in the most common instruction uses.  
First the 386, then the 486.  Hmm.  If Intel keeps this up, they might
make a decent CPU one day :-)

Anyway, it is not a fair comparison.  Not by a long stretch.  Let's see
how the Nth generation SPARC, MIPS, and 88K's do (assuming they last)
compared to some new design from scratch.
---
Larry McVoy, Sun Microsystems     (415) 336-7627       ...!sun!lm or lm@sun.com