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From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: RISC vs. CISC -- SPECmarks
Message-ID: <8lbG1vdl1@cs.psu.edu>
Date: 9 Apr 91 23:55:51 GMT
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In article <71367@brunix.UUCP> rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) writes:

   If RISC were software you would call it a hack, (or a C program with
   tons of gotos for that matter). Of course a hack is faster (sometimes)
   but it is not better. Use hacks where you absolutely have to i.e.
   where you are hitting the limits of technology e.g. in supercomputers.
   But leave it off our desks. Guess why NeXT went with Objective-C or
   why other people go with Lisp. Not because it is the fastest, but
   because it is clean. I don't care if a program is a few percents
   slower as long as it is maintainable. 

Why do you think NeXT is putting an i860 in their graphics board?
It's definitely RISC, and definitely high-performance.

   Say no to hacks, say no to RISC (at least in SPARC-like incarnations).

   In addition, the 68040 has built-in support for multi-processing.
   Which of the RISC chips does? (This is a real question). If there is
   any, then that's the one NeXT is most likely to choose, since I would
   guess multiprocessing is a more general solution to performance
   problems than any RISC-hack can offer, and thus I would suspect NeXT
   is putting a higher priority on that than on RISC.

The 88K has built in support for multiprocessing too.  Anyway, 4 25MHz
68040s are going to about equal one 25MHz R6000(or is it the R4000) 50
mips.  Thats 50 mips for the R6000 vs. 60 mips(at best, no flames this
time) for 4 68040s.  Which direction is would be cheaper for NeXT to
take?

-Mike