Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!mcdchg!chinet!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!hal!nic.MR.NET!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!urbsdc!aglew
From: aglew@urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: RISC vs CISC
Message-ID: <28200219@urbsdc>
Date: 29 Oct 88 20:34:00 GMT
References: <1213@dutesta.UUCP>
Lines: 62
Nf-ID: #R:dutesta.UUCP:1213:urbsdc:28200219:000:3071
Nf-From: urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM!aglew    Oct 29 15:34:00 1988


>/* ---------- "RISC vs CISC" ---------- */
>I only see discussions about established firms and there hardware. Am I
>the only one who ever heard about the Acorn Risc chip and there computer
>'Archimedes', or do all of you ignore this machine just because it is a
>small (british) company which manufactures strange computers (BBC).
>I do not own an Archimedes, but I like the machine -> it is cheap, fast,
>Hi-res lots of memory.
>What I like to know: How does this newsgroup think about this machine (chip).
>
>					Herman Adriani.
>P.S.
>I don't want to start a new war about RISC or CISC, I like both architectures
>and they should excist both!!!. They just have there won territory in which
>they outperform the other one.
>
>Don't flame me about starting something, I just wanna know (everything).
>-- 
> _____________________________________________________________________________
>/                                                                             \
>| Herman Adriani & Alfred Kayser: Computer fans especially from 24 pm to 7 am |
>\_____________________________________________________________________________/

Most of us simply don't know enough about the ARM to say much
useful. I've looked at it's instruction set, and it appears to
be fairly clean, although with the typical British penchant for
gimmicks (don't fmae me, I'm (almost) (dual citizen) a Brit too).
I am interested in the ARM because of its commodity market nature
- I think it's VLSI Technology that's selling it as an embedded
controller(?) - which means that it has significantly different
tradeoffs than most of the workstation chip wars we hear about
most often.  But apart from quoting the marketing literature
(7 MIPS, listing the IS) I don't have any meaningful data.

If anyone connected with the ARM wishes to start a meaningful 
discussion, I would probably join in, with questions like:
did you intend to sell it into the low market, or did you design
the chip and have it just happen that way? did you make the right
tradeoffs? etc.?  Is there anyone out there that can lead this?

In general, I start discussions on things that I am interested in.
I provide information on things that I know about, when that information
is already in the public domain.  And I'll comment about things
other folks say.

So, Herman, what can you tell us about the ARM and Archimedes?


Andy "Krazy" Glew. 
at: Motorola Microcomputer Division, Champaign-Urbana Development Center
    (formerly Gould CSD Urbana Software Development Center).
mail: 1101 E. University, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
email: (Gould addresses will persist for a while)
    aglew@gould.com     	    - preferred, if you have MX records
    aglew@fang.gould.com     	    - if you don't
    ...!uunet!uiucuxc!mcdurb!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.

PS. I promise to shorten this .signature soon.