Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!bionet!apple!malcolm
From: malcolm@Apple.COM (Malcolm Slaney)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: CISCy RISC? RISCy CISC?
Summary: Lisp Machines are not RISC's
Message-ID: <19191@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 21 Oct 88 01:52:42 GMT
References: <973@naucse.UUCP> <10192@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 23

Brian (bcase) Case writes:
>
>BUT, RISC is easier to make go fast than CISC.  Some, but only some,
>of the advantage is that RISCs are starting fresh while most CISCs
>must be backward compatible.  Even so, there are no new CISC designs
>being done, that I know of.  

Ummm, I think Symbolics and TI would probably argue with this statement.
Both companies have recently introduced Lisp machines on a chip....and nobody
will ever call a conventional Lisp machine architecture a RISC.

It could be argued that this is just a reimplementation of an old machine but
as near as I can tell the people designing these chips believe that their
architecture is optimum.  Since neither Symbolics or TI have a large number 
of people selling binary only code for these machines I don't think binary
compatibility is an issue.

Rumor has it that the people that used to be at Lisp Machines International 
(LMI) have started a new company to build yet another Lisp machine on a chip.

							Malcolm
P.S.  An interesting question is whether Symbolics/TI/LMI will fail because 
the market is to small to support a processor designed for Lisp and GC or
because CISC's are a mistake.