> On Aug 11, 2015, at 12:20 PM, Chuck Guzis <ccl...@sydex.com> wrote: > > ... >> I suspect part of the reason is that Algol wasn’t all that popular in >> the USA even if its heyday. Add to that the fact that most computer >> designers weren’t all that skilled in software. And finally, as the >> RISC experience has shown, it isn’t really worth it. > ... > What RISC does demand is a fast memory system. The 6600 had 1 usec memory > interleaved 10 ways, so it could issue a read or write every machine cycle > (100 nsec). Without that, the 6600 could well have been a real dog.
Every machine needs a fast memory system. CISC machines just as much, after all the number of memory references per operation of a given kind doesn’t depend on the sort of CPU architecture you use. All that changes is whether the cycles are issued by regular machine code, or micro-engine actions. A full-up 6600 is 32 way interleaved; half size you get 16 way interleaving. Once nice benefit is that context switching takes only a few microseconds, because the exchange jump would swap current and new context at memory speed: 16 words issued at 100 ns intervals once the operation gets moving. paul