Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!claris!aimt!phil
From: phil@aimt.UU.NET (Phil Gustafson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: New product?
Summary: Early RISC
Message-ID: <3263@aimt.UU.NET>
Date: 21 Feb 90 05:46:31 GMT
References: <749@npiatl.UUCP> <1242@msa3b.UUCP> <335@mtndew.UUCP> <289@pallas.athenanet.com>
Distribution: comp
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In article <289@pallas.athenanet.com>, lbert359@pallas.athenanet.com (Lee Bertagnolli) writes:
> IBM may have coined the term (RISC), but they certainly did not have the
> first commercially available systems.  As far back as 1972(!) there was
> the Burroughs B1000 series..

Another RISCish computer of the day was the Data General Nova.  It had eight
instructions, each modifiable with various skip and other conditions.  It
had a large number of general registers for the era -- four times as many as
the then-competitive DEC processor.  And _all_ arithmetic operations were
register-to-register.

All these characteristics are straight out of the RISC dogma book.


-- 
				Phil Gustafson, Graphics/UN*X Consultant
				{uunet,ames!coherent}!aimt!phil phil@aimt.uu.net
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