Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!kithrup!sef From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: small instructions Message-ID: <1991Jun15.224614.10258@kithrup.COM> Date: 15 Jun 91 22:46:14 GMT References: <195@armltd.uucp> <25734@lanl.gov> Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd. Lines: 24 In article <25734@lanl.gov> jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes: >The cheetah is a RISC architecture. It contains nothing that isn't >needed to run fast or to kill. >Nature contains very few CISC architectures. By that definition, then, H. Sap. is a CISC. Far more frontal lobes than we would need merely to survive, organs we no longer need (appendix, for example, and note that this causes lots of problems), teeth which, although they seemed a good idea when designed, were implemented poorly and are thus causing problems for future generations of the architecture (wisdom teeth, anybody?). Nature contains *lots* of "CISC architectures," in that there are lots of things ("features") most organisms could live quite well without. (Why do male mammals have nipples?) The most successful organisms on this planet are the "simple" ones: insects. -- Sean Eric Fagan | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it; sef@kithrup.COM | I had a bellyache at the time." -----------------+ -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_) Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.