9 Aug
2000
9 Aug
'00
2:04 p.m.
From: Geoff Roberts <geoffrob(a)stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Smith" <eric(a)brouhaha.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: AS/400?
I though the AS400 is CISC to the max and the RISC solutions were
called RS6000.
Allison
I believe that to be false. The IBMLink sales
information for that
model says that it runs OS/400 V3R1 or V3R2, which only run on CISC
models.
> RISC models run V3R7 or V4Rx. 
9 Aug
9 Aug
2:21 p.m.
Allison wrote:
I though the AS400 is CISC to the max and the RISC
solutions were
called RS6000.
Nope. All current AS/400 systems use RISC processors.
The "MI" layer, which is the lowest supported "machine code" level of
the AS/400 (sort of like P-code or Java bytecodes) is very CISCy, but
that's implemented in software on both CISC and RISC AS/400s.
It's reported that IBM will be calling future machines "I/500",
and they will be capable of running OS/400, AIX, or Linux.
2:23 p.m.
I wrote:
The "MI" layer, which is the lowest
supported "machine code" level of
the AS/400 (sort of like P-code or Java bytecodes) is very CISCy, but
that's implemented in software on both CISC and RISC AS/400s.
I should probably further add that the MI layer is translated into
native code, so there generally isn't a performance penalty for
interpretation. The point is, however, that IBM does not support users
writing actual machine code on the AS/400 boxes. Also, the MI code is
portable across all AS/400 models, while the internal code is not.
8901
days inactive
8901
days old
2 comments
2 participants
participants (2)
-
ajp166＠bellatlantic.net -
eric＠brouhaha.com