Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!udel!burdvax!barry
From: barry@PRC.Unisys.COM (Barry Traylor)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Bandwidth Wasters Hall of Fame for comp.arch
Summary: Did someone say "stack machine"?
Keywords: Stack, mutlitasking, e.t.c
Message-ID: <11537@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM>
Date: 24 Sep 89 06:12:54 GMT
References: <13744@well.UUCP> <4186@bd.sei.cmu.edu> <10732@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Followup-To: comp.arch
Distribution: na
Organization: Unisys Corporation, Paoli Research Center; Paoli, PA
Lines: 26

In article <10732@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> axaris@cs.buffalo.edu (Vassilios Axaris) writes:
>I second the opinion expressed that the discussions have been elightening and
>utterly interesting. 

Thank-you very much.  Even though I'm relatively new at this, I seemed to
finish in the top 25.

>Well, I happened to delve into the area of stack machines.
>I have not seen too much going on, except the RTX 2000. Why is there this lack
>of interest in the designer community, when the architecture offers some clear
>advantages when considering code compaction, context switching, and the like?
>Especially for high level languages that execute around the stack.
>Any insight will be greatly appreciated.

Thank-you, thank-you for mentioning stack machines.  The little beastie I
work on happens to be one.  It is also concurrent per processor AND
multiprocessing.  The machine?  The Unisys (formerly Burroughs) A17.  Early
published literature can be found on an ancestor, the B6700.  The book was
still in print about 8 years ago:  "Structure and Architecture of the
B6700" by Elliot Organick.  I may be a little off on the title.  Processor
architecture reference manuals for current products can be ordered from
Unisys, but I'd be hard pressed to tell you how.

Barry Traylor
Unisys A Series Engineering
barry@prc.unisys.com (when I can dial in)