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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Horizontal pipelining
Message-ID: <2581@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Nov-87 18:55:04 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.2581
Posted: Wed Nov 25 18:55:04 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Nov-87 00:40:49 EST
References: <201@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <388@sdcjove.CAM.UNISYS.COM>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT.
Lines: 24

In article <958@winchester.UUCP> mash@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey) writes:
|In article <380@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> lindsay@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes:
|>If you assume a single-chip CPU, I guess it's a bad idea.
|
|That's the critical observation, and observe that an increasing piece
|of the computing spectrum is being dominated by single-chip CPUs,
|whose design tradeoffs are very different from having boards full of
|[TTL, ECL, etc] logic.

This is a good point, but unless I am missing something, it is only a
temporary one.  Surely we will reach the point, not too many years from now,
when the logic which now fills many boards will all fit on one chip.  At
that point, the arguments for horizontal pipelining on a single chip CPU
will be as strong as they are today for multi-chip CPUs.  Won't they?

Another trend which might doom the idea is that towards individual
(single-user) computers.  The future of multi-tasking on such machines is
very much in question; if it becomes a big thing, there is no problem.
Otherwise, we are left the relatively few (but, on average, higher-powered)
time-shared systems which are left.
-- 

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Ashton-Tate          52 Oakland Ave North         E. Hartford, CT 06108