Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!crowl
From: crowl@cs.rochester.edu (Lawrence Crowl)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Survey of architectures was (Re: Proposed architecture characterization)
Message-ID: <8867@sol.ARPA>
Date: 21 Apr 88 19:14:30 GMT
References: <2048@gumby.mips.COM> <10504@steinmetz.ge.com> <7657@ames.arpa>
Reply-To: crowl@cs.rochester.edu (Lawrence Crowl)
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Lines: 25

In article <7657@ames.arpa> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>He's amazed we have not better standardized computers (would really like an
>X-MP which runs VMS, wants one language, one OS, one instruction set,
>and pure speed) and this (standards) is why computer science will not be
>a science.

Argh!  Languages, operating systems and instruction sets are at usually
commercial products and at most experiments, not theories.  Asking for one
system implies that computer science "has the answer".  If we had the answer,
we would not be a science.  What we need is a better standardized physical
theory.  Physicists keep changing their mind.  Let's stick with Newtonian
physics.  After all, if you have more than one theory it is not a science.  
 
>He's curious about what machines have been very influential in the design
>of computers (what machines have been most important).

Is this what he perceives as computer science?  The most influential boxes?
If he is going to attack computer science, then he should seek to understand
the science, not the boxes.  He seems to be trying to understand physics by
asking which bridges most influenced the design of later bridges.

-- 
  Lawrence Crowl		716-275-9499	University of Rochester
		      crowl@cs.rochester.edu	Computer Science Department
...!{allegra,decvax,rutgers}!rochester!crowl	Rochester, New York,  14627