Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!purdue!decwrl!decvax!tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!mbutts
From: mbutts@mntgfx.mentor.com (Mike Butts)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Survey of architectures was (Re: Proposed architecture characterization)
Message-ID: <1988Apr22.095544.86@mntgfx.mentor.com>
Date: 22 Apr 88 16:55:40 GMT
References: <29220@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Organization: Mentor Graphics Corporation, Beaverton Oregon
Lines: 33

From article <29220@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>, by esf00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank):
> In article <7657@ames.arpa> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>>This form raises an interesting question.
>>
>>He's curious about what machines have been very influential in the design
>>of computers
> 
> The following list would be my take on what designs other designers have
> reacted to over the last twenty years or so.  I've probably slighted
> the VLIW and parallel crowd, but I haven't [yet] seen a lot of
> impact on other architecture that's come out of their research.  Machines,
> yes.  Architectural principles, no.
> 

Allow me to add:

* DG Nova -- arguably an early (circa 1970) and quite popular RISC, which is a 
    direct descendant of...

* PDP-8 -- extremely RISC.  Just as the minimality of today's RISCs allow chip-
    level implementation, so did PDP-8's minimality allow rack-level 
    implementation in its day (25 years ago.)

* PDP-1 -- the first minicomputer.  Although it filled several racks, it was
    mini for 1961, and its instruction set was decidedly a minicomputer's.

* FPS-164 -- original (1981) VLIW mini-super (it's **not** an array processor)


-- 
Mike Butts, Research Engineer         KC7IT           503-626-1302
Mentor Graphics Corp., 8500 SW Creekside Place, Beaverton OR 97005
...!{sequent,tessi,apollo}!mntgfx!mbutts OR  mbutts@pdx.MENTOR.COM
These are my opinions, & not necessarily those of Mentor Graphics.