KOSH [Kommunity Orientated Software Hardware]

Weekly Summary

Week:  1st March 1999

Number:  008

Mailing List:  kosh-hardware-o

In the mailing list this week, the following items were discussed.
Please do not email the scribe regarding any of these topics, it is
not his job to answer these questions, but merely to report the topics
of conversation. If you have any queries about this summary, please
email summaries@kosh.convergence.org, stating the Summary Number, and
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a)

Subject:  SCISC model of hardware level CPU independence

Summary of Debate:  As a superset of other instruction sets, the
                    SCISC set would present a wide range of
                    instructions, possibly even including instructions
                    that have yet to be implemented in any piece of
                    hardware.
                    In general it is felt that this method will not
                    be efficient.  By using a pseudo machine level
                    code, much higher abstraction would be lost.
                    This higher abstraction would allow a compiler
                    to make much more intelligent optimization
                    decisions based upon the capabilities of the CPU in
                    question.

b)

Subject:  Other examples of code translation.

Summary of Debate:  It is observed that recent x86 chips are
                    translating x86 instructions into simpler
                    instructions which are passed to the core, in
                    effect imitating RISC while maintaining x86
                    compatability. Under FX!32 x86 code is run on an
                    alpha processor, however the results are less than
                    native code on the alpha would be.  One case where
                    native code performance may be less of an issue
                    would be the chip from Transmeta, as it is being
                    designed to run as an emulator.
c)

Subject:  News from outside the list.

Summary of Debate:  An article on the Russian Elbrus project was
                    posted, mentioning their chip that is said to
                    outperform Merced.  In addition an article
                    mentioning that HP is joining other major
                    computer companies in showing an interest
                    in linux.