Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!bionet!apple!vsi1!wyse!mips!mash
From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Architecture Wars, again; survey
Message-ID: <7809@winchester.mips.COM>
Date: 7 Nov 88 22:26:46 GMT
References: <7316@winchester.mips.COM> <75478@sun.uucp> <10770@cup.portal.c <11016@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: mash@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 31

In article <11016@cup.portal.com> mslater@cup.portal.com (Michael Z Slater) writes:
>
>To put this in perspective, Dataquest estimates 1987 68020 shipments at
>746,000 and 1987 386 shipments at 710,000.  Shipments for 68020/030 and
>386 should be 1.5 to 2 million each in 1988.....

Yes.  NO reasonable person expects the existing successful micros
to suddenly go away.  I'll repeat the last slide from a recent talk
at UNIX Expo:

PREDICTIONS
1. Will CISC architectures disappear?
2. Will CISC architectures be made faster?
3. Will they catch RISC architectures?
4. Will there be any successful new CISC architectures?
----------
my answers:

1. Don't be silly.

2. Yes.  More silicon, fancy logic, and caches help anything.

3. No. Complexity/space, time, and sometimes too few registers.

4. No.*

* (unless IBM feels like it)
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
UUCP: 	{ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash  OR  mash@mips.com
DDD:  	408-991-0253 or 408-720-1700, x253
USPS: 	MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086