Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request From: mcvax!m2cs.uu.no!frode@uunet.uu.net (Frode Odegard) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun Subject: Re: Is RISC faster Keywords: Miscellaneous Message-ID: <134@m2cs.uu.no> Date: 7 Mar 89 20:24:22 GMT References: <15686@mimsy.UUCP> Sender: usenet@rice.edu Organization: Sun-Spots Lines: 26 Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu Original-Date: 23 Feb 89 20:29:14 GMT X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 186, message 6 of 12 I think maybe National Semiconductor should be given some credit for their work on the 32532 and (the upcoming) 32764. This is CISC at its best, the instruction set has been exactly the same since good old 16032 (later renamed to 32016) came out out, only that the implementation has been vastly improved of course. Maybe Sun should have looked at NS? I'd pick NS over SPARC any day if I were to build a computer running high-level language applications. With RISC there is also the problem with generating good code. Some of the commercial RISC implementations are so "obscure" that the compiler writers have to make sure to insert "pause" instructions to avoid some nasty effects. With nice instruction sets like the one of the NS32000 family, compiler writers don't have to think in terms of what goes on INTERNALLY in the cpu. Maybe this isn't so bad with SPARC, I dunno. Sun having picked SPARC whoever, I think it is nice that they want people to make clones. Cheap SPARC clones would be nice, maybe Sun will be able to make the PC recolution happen all over again, only in the workstation world? At least this is what they're telling us... - Frode Frode L. Odegard Modula-2 CASE Systems NORWAY (EUROPE) Email: frode@m2cs.uu.no