Talk:Complex instruction set computer

message: The tenses are a bit odd here. Maybe they should be unified to present tense unless past tense is actually approriate?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qbeep (talk • contribs) 01:26, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Present tense?

message: Is the date ("1994-10-10") at the bottom of the page really necessary? It is the date from the FOLDOC entry that this article is based on, I think. I don't see why it is still relevant. I'm going to remove it, but if it's serving some sort of good purpose, go ahead and put it back. James Foster 09:57, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Date

message: "For example, on one processor it was discovered that it was possible to improve performance by not using the procedure call instruction but using a sequence of simpler instructions instead."
Exactly what processor is the author refering to? Or did he just make that up?
REFERENCES!!!
:The processor was probably the VAX, and the call instruction was probably either CALLG or CALLS.  I remember this being discussed ages ago in the early days of modern RISC.  Unfortunately, I don't have a reference right now - either it's not available to Google or it's buried in the welter of pages that match a search for "vax performance callg calls jsr" - but I suspect a reference can be found.  I'll keep looking (or you, or somebody else, might find it).  Guy Harris 07:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I found a similar example with the VAX-11/780 index instruction being slower than an equivalent, simpler instruction sequence. See: http://www.pattosoft.com.au/jason/Articles/HistoryOfComputers/1970s.html (third to last paragraph). This is also mentioned in the book "Computer Organization & Design" by Patterson and Hennessy, 1st Edition (page 350). If you can't find the reference for your original example, perhaps you can use this and link to the webpage I mentioned. Rogerbrent 18:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References? 

message: This article gives it as an example of a CISC processor, but the CDC 6600 page says "The basis for the 6600 CPU is what we would today refer to as a RISC system, one in which the processor is tuned to do instructions which are comparatively simple and have limited and well defined access to memory."  It did, as I remember, have fixed-length instructions, only simple addressing modes, and a load/store architecture, which sounds more RISCy than CISCy; how does it qualify as a CISC processor? Guy Harris 19:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  CDC 6600 a CISC machine? 

message: In the development of architectures, the term RICH meant Rich Instruction CHip, implying individual machine instructions were potentially extremely powerful, sometimes competing with compiler instructions. In the 1980s, CISC supplanted RICH in the trade press, although I consider RICH a more descriptive (and mroe clever) acronym than CISC.
This deserves mention within the CISC article, although I don't believe RICH deserves a separate article.
--UnicornTapestry (talk) 23:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Guy Harris (talk) 00:19, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RICH 

message: I've been thinking that it would make sense to merge the CISC page into the RISC page. The problem is that the RISC and CISC page have a lot of overlap and mostly cover the same history and information, so they are largely redundant (when they aren't contradictory). As WP:OVERLAP says, "Remember, that Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept. For example, "flammable" and "non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on flammability."
I'm not saying that CISC is unimportant, of course. But since CISC is essentially defined in opposition to RISC, you can't really discuss one without the other. I think that combining the pages would improve both of them. Comments? KenShirriff (talk) 20:15, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Combine CISC page with RISC?