Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: is Vax addressing sane today
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2024 23:36:12 -0700
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <vdo2ct$4les$1@dont-email.me>
References: <vdg3d1$2kdqr$1@dont-email.me>
 <memo.20241001101211.19028o@jgd.cix.co.uk>
 <20241001123426.000066c1@yahoo.com>
 <2024Oct1.182625@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <vdknel$3e4pf$9@dont-email.me>
 <2024Oct3.085754@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <vdne1a$3uaeh$4@dont-email.me>
 <m1rufjhpi09m9adedt87nrcdfmij1i8pvb@4ax.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2024 08:36:14 +0200 (CEST)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="fc164e46f97ea511b07a2aabded41e34";
	logging-data="153052"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/SZYTjPck5zSY9pDHSEGFVsXnC2DS6DPM="
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Cancel-Lock: sha1:X0eVlx118CWtwS8iC8SwccxpB74=
In-Reply-To: <m1rufjhpi09m9adedt87nrcdfmij1i8pvb@4ax.com>
Content-Language: en-US
Bytes: 2373

On 10/3/2024 9:23 PM, George Neuner wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Oct 2024 00:48:43 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro
> <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 03 Oct 2024 06:57:54 GMT, Anton Ertl wrote:
>>
>>> If the RISC companies failed to keep up, they only have themselves to
>>> blame.
>>
>> That’s all past history, anyway. RISC very much rules today, and it is x86
>> that is struggling to keep up.
> 
> You are, of course, aware that the complex "x86" instruction set is an
> illusion and that the hardware essentially has been a load-store RISC
> with a complex decoder on the front end since the Pentium Pro landed
> in 1995.

Yeah. Wrt memory barriers, one is allowed to release a spinlock on "x86" 
with a simple store.



> 
> 
>>> Another issue was the marketing.  The RISC companies did not want to
>>> damage their existing high-priced workstation and server business by
>>> providing cheap CPUs for the masses ...
>>
>> There was one RISC family that did indeed provide cheap CPUs for the
>> masses, even more so than x86, and that was ARM.