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From: reiter@endor.harvard.edu (Ehud Reiter)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Am29000 and MIPS
Message-ID: <1423@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Mar-87 11:34:17 EST
Article-I.D.: husc6.1423
Posted: Tue Mar 17 11:34:17 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Mar-87 06:55:24 EST
References: <15192@amdcad.UUCP>
Sender: news@husc6.UUCP
Reply-To: reiter@harvard.UUCP (Ehud Reiter)
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 23
Keywords: RISC MIPS

In article <15192@amdcad.UUCP> bcase@amdcad.UUCP (Brian Case) writes:
>The Am29000 ...  25 MHz clock (40 ns cycle time) ...
>25 MIPS max., 17 MIPS sustained running big programs

MIPS is of course one of the most unfortunate terms in computer performance.
It seems to have two meanings:
   a)  how much faster a manufacturer thinks his machine is compared
to a VAX-11/780 (usually comparing integer C programs against a 4.2 BSD VAX
using standard Berkeley cc).
   b)  the number of million instructions per second that a computer executes.

In a sane world, (b) would be the common definition.  Unfortunately, in our
world, (a) seems to be the common definition.  So, when someone uses the word
"MIPS" and means (b) (as seems to be the case in the above posting), I suspect
that many people get confused and think that definition (a) was meant.

I don't mean to criticize the Am29000, which I'm sure is a fine machine.  But
in the interest of taking whatever feeble measures are possible to reduce the
confusion level in this area, I wish people would stick to definition (a)
of "MIPS", unless they explicitly say they're using definition (b).

					Ehud Reiter
					reiter@harvard	(ARPA,BITNET,UUCP)