Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!ames!amdahl!esf00
From: esf00@amdahl.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Wirth's challenge (was Re: RISC
Message-ID: <19825@amdahl.amdahl.com>
Date: 18 Dec 87 17:30:06 GMT
References: <6901@apple.UUCP> <28200075@ccvaxa> <12181@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: esf00@amdahl.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank)
Organization: The Beige Building Full of Bright Engineers, Inc.
Lines: 23

In article <12181@orchid.waterloo.edu> atbowler@orchid.waterloo.edu (Alan T. Bowler [SDG]) writes:
>
>                                              Once you get over
>the fixation that your problem is so different that the hardware
>designer has to tailor an instruction just for you, you realize
>that what you want is something that does some basic functions
>fast, and let the programmer construct the other stuff.  The
>design problem is to choose the right basic operations. 
>

Amen.

The Amdahl 580 (a 370-compatible [CISC] machine designed ca. 1978-79)
was designed with contemporary 'UNIX machine' features -- separate
I and D caches, etc. It turned out it ran 360/370 COBOL programs like
the proverbial 'bat out of hell'.
-- 
Elliott Frank      ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00     (408) 746-6384
               or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00

[the above opinions are strictly mine, if anyone's.]
[the above signature may or may not be repeated, depending upon some
inscrutable property of the mailer-of-the-week.]