Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!ptimtc!nntp-server.caltech.edu!mustang!data.nas.nasa.gov!amelia!eugene
From: eugene@nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Vector vs Cache/Superscalar
Message-ID: <1991May4.185830.21869@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 4 May 91 18:58:30 GMT
References: <1991May4.031835.7979@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov
Reply-To: eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center
Lines: 16

Vectors are simpler and "rigid:"
In article <1991May4.031835.7979@midway.uchicago.edu> rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu
(raymond thomas pierrehumbert) writes:
>Now, the $64 question:  Why no supercomputer based on an 
>architecture for the processor like the RS/6000, BUT with
>your extra $2M buying bandwidth to memory like the Cray's
>(no cache)?

1) Few supercomputers exist.  New architectures are expensive propositions.
2) Vectors were proposed in the 1960s by IBM, built in the 1970s by Cray
and others. S-Scalar were not implemented until the 1980s.
3) Technological and economic factors play on any person trying to
design and build a super.  Do you want to build one?  I didn't think so.
Can I get my $64?

Ain't hindsight wonderful? 8^)  It's not only clear, but it's cheap.