Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: RISC  a short answer??
Message-ID: <1988May8.023958.17801@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1036@nusdhub.UUCP> <1988May3.224604.2252@utzoo.uucp>
Date: Sun, 8 May 88 02:39:58 GMT

> >... optimizing compilers are a crucial part of many "RISC"
> >projects today...  [RISCs are good for optimization, but this] is not a
> > fundamental part of the RISC concept.
> 
> I disagree completely.  I think the whole point of RISC is to properly
> match hardware with the capabilities of software...  [etc etc etc]

If you are using "RISC" in its increasingly-frequent sense as a marketing
buzzword, sure.  I will agree with you if you change "RISC" to "many RISC-
based projects".  Any realistic project has to use a number of concepts to
meet its goals, and RISC is usually only one of them.  (After all, CISC
designers generally don't consider complicating the instruction set to be
their only design guideline!)

> RISC is a way of doing things, not a thing.

Please look up "reduced" and "instruction set" in a dictionary (a technical
dictionary for the latter, of course).
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry