By: David Kanter (dkanter.delete@this.realworldtech.com), November 25, 2014 11:02 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
Linus Torvalds (torvalds.delete@this.linux-foundation.org) on November 24, 2014 6:17 pm wrote:
> Would it be worth it to resurrect the VAX instruction set? Obviously not. But I think the argument
> in this thread was that once you get over a certain stage in technology, the "that's practically unimplementable"
> part goes away. The VAX instruction set isn't really amenable to straightforward instruction pipelining,
> no. But that doesn't mean that it isn't amenable to more modern techniques..
I agree with this analysis, but take it a step further. Suppose you had enough transistors to implement a uop cache - how much would the VAX complexity bite then? Sure it costs more transistors, but who cares? Compatability with existing software is almost always worth it.
David
> Would it be worth it to resurrect the VAX instruction set? Obviously not. But I think the argument
> in this thread was that once you get over a certain stage in technology, the "that's practically unimplementable"
> part goes away. The VAX instruction set isn't really amenable to straightforward instruction pipelining,
> no. But that doesn't mean that it isn't amenable to more modern techniques..
I agree with this analysis, but take it a step further. Suppose you had enough transistors to implement a uop cache - how much would the VAX complexity bite then? Sure it costs more transistors, but who cares? Compatability with existing software is almost always worth it.
David
