From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Apr 11 21:41:19 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA13412 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 11 Apr 1997 21:41:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA13407 for ; Fri, 11 Apr 1997 21:41:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) id OAA29855; Sat, 12 Apr 1997 14:10:10 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199704120440.OAA29855@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: 430TX ? In-Reply-To: from John Utz at "Apr 11, 97 09:46:26 am" To: spaz@u.washington.edu (John Utz) Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 14:10:10 +0930 (CST) Cc: michaelh@cet.co.jp, avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au, terry@lambert.org, hackers@FreeBSD.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk John Utz stands accused of saying: > > > > While we're talking about Intel, they claim that they're focusing more on > > memory bandwidth these days and the Pentium II has some kind of dual bus > > architecture that makes a significant performance difference. > > my instructor claims they separated the cache into instruction > cache and data-cache.....a previously 'discredited' architecture known to > the ancients as 'harvard architecture ( howard aiken )' as opposed to the > traditional 'von neumann' or 'princeton' architecture.... is cache space > relatively cheap these days? Split I&D cache is nothing 'discredited' (cf. Sparc, Mips, Motorola), and full-Havard CPUs have been around all along too (all of the m68k family, for example). Cache space has nothing to do with it; the basic idea is that code and data are not normally tightly mixed (instruction operands count as 'code') and thus having seperate caches for them can be a Good Thing. It Intel are hailing this as some sort of 'breakthrough', then that's just one more reason to laugh loudly at them. > John Utz spaz@u.washington.edu -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[