Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cadnetix.COM!cadnetix!eriks
From: eriks@cadnetix.COM (Eriks Ziemelis)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: RISC v. CISC --(really Cyber 170)
Summary: There are living fossils on the net
Message-ID: <5351@cadnetix.COM>
Date: 21 Nov 88 16:55:56 GMT
References: <595030314.2944@minster.york.ac.uk> <1762@scolex> <6475@june.cs.washington.edu>
Sender: news@cadnetix.COM
Reply-To: eriks@cadnetix.COM (Eriks Ziemelis)
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Lines: 36

In article <6475@june.cs.washington.edu> rik@june.cs.washington.edu (Rik Littlefield) writes:
>In article <1762@scolex>, seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) writes:
>
>> Lastly, why wouldn't you want to program these machines?  They are
>> *wonderful*.  Anybody who has to learn assembly language should learn these
>> machines (they're about as regular as a PDP, but are much faster, and
>> prepare people for RISC)!
>
>I agree completely -- no complicated addressing modes, a simple regular
>instruction set, and (for their day) they ran like scalded dogs.  Having
>just 18-bit addresses did get in the way, though.  Especially since only 17
>of them were actually usable, and most machines weren't even that big!
>
>--Rik


Hear, hear! Even though my experience with the Cyber family was in college
(2 6500 and 1 6600: one of the systems had the ECS) I loved it. Still have 
copies of the manuals and after having worked with Vaxen, 68K, PDP, et. al.
I still want to program a Cyber. Almost took a job out of college doing just
that for a SDI (Star Wars) research company. Oh well, we all make 
mistakes.

To anyone at Purdue: I heard a rumor that the assembly language programming
course (CS 300) is no longer Compass. Is this true?


Eriks A. Ziemelis


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