Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!bwong
From: bwong@sundc.UUCP (Brian Wong)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Are all RISCs the same?
Message-ID: <5708@sundc.UUCP>
Date: 11 Sep 88 23:57:17 GMT
References: <58@zeno.MN.ORG> <6903@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <22860@amdcad.AMD.COM> <5116@netnews.upenn.edu>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Vienna, VA
Lines: 34

In article <5116@netnews.upenn.edu>, blackman@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (David Blackman) writes:
> 
> I don't know if you are objecting to "good", "hard", or "real-time" but
> I would argue that you certainly want "good" and "real-time" machines.
> 
> Real time, predictable performance is one of the most important advantages
> that a workstation affords.  The large variance in response time on normal
> time sharing computers was one of the factors which inspired the development
> of workstations.  ... one of the advantages of the
> Alto is that is doesn't run faster at night...
[... stuff deleted...]
> In all cases, the system must provide the facilities for users to
> write software that has high performance, can keep up with most external
> devices and events, and have uniform response time.  This sounds like
> real-time to me.
> 

[I've edited down] 

Perhaps I was asleep during my college classes, but to me,
realtime !nessarily= highPerformance.  Quick perceptual response, and high
performance in general are certainly goals for all workstation design
engineers.  But I don't think that the (strict) requirements of real time
are necessary in the general case.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that realtime isn't necessary.
Just that it's overkill in a whole lot of situations, and that perhaps the
engineering decisions involved in designing hardware/software shouldn't
always be weighted toward realtime.


-- 
Brian Wong					Sun Microsystems
bwong@sun.com					Vienna, Va.  703-883-1243