Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Fri, 11 Apr 1997 23:04:10 -0700 (PDT)
From:      John Utz <spaz@u.washington.edu>
To:        Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   sorry bout the 'discredited architecture remark'Re: 430TX ?
Message-ID:  <Pine.OSF.3.95.970411225914.1453A-100000@becker1.u.washington.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199704120440.OAA29855@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hi Michael;

This is the second call i have received on my snide reference to harvard
architecture as a 'discredited architecture'. It was an overly biased
comment. i just think that separate instruction and data memory is a
mistake because u wind up with too much of one and not enuf of the other
too often.

nonetheless, it obviously works, so i will slink off now.....


On Sat, 12 Apr 1997, Michael Smith wrote:

> 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  [[
> 

*******************************************************************************
 John Utz	spaz@u.washington.edu
	idiocy is the impulse function in the convolution of life




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.OSF.3.95.970411225914.1453A-100000>