Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!peregrine!elroy!ames!ncar!oddjob!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!urbsdc!aglew
From: aglew@urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Self-modifying code (and bitblt
Message-ID: <28200184@urbsdc>
Date: 30 Jul 88 16:52:00 GMT
References: <306@hobbit.sci.kun.nl>
Lines: 39
Nf-ID: #R:hobbit.sci.kun.nl:306:urbsdc:28200184:000:1678
Nf-From: urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM!aglew    Jul 30 11:52:00 1988


> Can you say "imbalanced system"?

Getting away from the Blitter wars, what exactly do people mean
by a "balanced system", and why is it so important.

This is a somewhat rhetorical question. And yes, I know about
Amdahl's MIPS/MB/s rule of thumb, and a few others.

I ask this because I have seen several situations where building
unbalanced systems has been an attractive corporate strategy.
Eg. a small company that can't do everything at once, and wants
to maintain a high rate of delivery of new projects: 
    Start off with a really fast memory system, and good, but not 
necessarily the fastest CPUs. Deliver this as your first system. 
    Keep the memory system, but work all out on the CPU. 
Deliver this as your second system - with the advantages that the
memory system is tried and proven, so all that you have to devote
debugging and langauge effort to is the CPU system.
    Now the memory is tired, so spend time and effort working on
it - but keep the proven CPUs...

And so on. This is an overlapping product development strategy
- eventually, the whole system gets redone, but at any time you
don't have the expense and risk of giving the customer a completely 
new system.

Reactions?



Andy "Krazy" Glew. Gould CSD-Urbana.    1101 E. University, Urbana, IL 61801   
    aglew@gould.com     	- preferred, if you have MX records
    aglew@xenurus.gould.com     - if you don't
    ...!ihnp4!uiucuxc!ccvaxa!aglew  - paths may still be the only way
   
My opinions are my own, and are not the opinions of my employer, or any
other organisation. I indicate my company only so that the reader may
account for any possible bias I may have towards our products.