Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ncar!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!urbsdc!aglew
From: aglew@urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: penalty for microcode
Message-ID: <28200241@urbsdc>
Date: 23 Nov 88 20:23:00 GMT
References: <3290@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Lines: 16
Nf-ID: #R:ucdavis.ucdavis.edu:3290:urbsdc:28200241:000:575
Nf-From: urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM!aglew    Nov 23 14:23:00 1988


>There's a definite appeal to having one-cycle instructions, but i think it's
>mostly illusory.  If an in-place complement takes less time than a three-operand
>add-with-shift, they shouldn't be forced to take the same amount of time.  In
>other words, if most of your instructions take one cycle, your cycles are too
>long.
>
>So what do y'all think about this?  Are one-cycle instructions a good thing?
>
>--Joe

Cycles are a bad thing! The universe is not discrete.
All instructions should be self-timed, to precisely the length of
time required to do the operation.

:-)