Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!daveb
From: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: RISC  a short answer??
Message-ID: <2725@geac.UUCP>
Date: 10 May 88 13:10:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: geac.2725
Posted: Tue May 10 09:10:34 1988
References: <1036@nusdhub.UUCP> <1988May3.224604.2252@utzoo.uucp> <383@m3.mfci.UUCP> <1988May5.171444.849@utzoo.uucp> <9341@apple.Apple.Com> <2810@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <388@m3.mfci.UUCP>
Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Organization: The Geac Pedantry Department.
Lines: 20

In article <388@m3.mfci.UUCP> colwell@m3.UUCP (Robert Colwell) writes:
 | You both are basically citing the
 |definition that Patterson originally proffered, taking us to task for
 |trying to change that.  But if you want to be historically accurate,
 |then start with Radin's ASPLOS-I paper on the IBM-801, which does not
 |talk about the number of instructions but about their efficacy and
 |usefulness.

  Definitions, like standards, come out of popular usage, codified
after the usage becomes **in fact** popular.
  The inventor of a term gets a slightly better chance to define it
because she's first....

--dave (it a simple matter of who's the boss:
	the word or me) c-b
-- 
 David Collier-Brown.                 {mnetor yunexus utgpu}!geac!daveb
 Geac Computers International Inc.,   |  Computer Science loses its
 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, |  memory (if not its mind) 
 CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 |  every 6 months.