Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!mintaka!spdcc!iecc!johnl
From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: re: Can old architectures run fast?
Message-ID: <1991May05.174756.9026@iecc.cambridge.ma.us>
Date: 5 May 91 17:47:56 GMT
References: <8283@uceng.UC.EDU> <7628@auspex.auspex.com> <8324@uceng.UC.EDU>
Organization: I.E.C.C.
Lines: 16
Old-Subject: Re: Will NeXT survive? Grow with the times?

In article <8324@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) writes:
>Are we likely to see the fastest CPU in year X being able to run,
>without change, a binary program more than 5 years old? ...

Well, there's always the IBM 360.  You can still run 1965 vintage 360
binaries on IBM's latest 3090 mainframe.  The 360 architecture has stood the
test of time surprisingly well, better I think than the 360 extensions.  The
360 had simple instruction decoding, strict data alignment rules, and a
large and uniform register set which made it relatively easy to speed up.
(Yes, it also had things like edit-and-mark which is a disaster in a paging
system, they weren't totally prescient.)

-- 
John R. Levine, IECC, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869
johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {ima|spdcc|world}!iecc!johnl
Cheap oil is an oxymoron.