OT: A call to arms (sort of) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

3 Jul 1999

<As for Allison's comment that SPARC is to "high end" I have to
disagree.
<The SPARC architecture was initally a lot less complicated than the PDP-11
<architecture. It is the funky MMUs that get in the way. 

Error.  Highend meaning it's not a simple or low complexity system.  SPARC
may be RISC but that has little to do with system implmentation only the 
instruction set and internal processor design.  It's still 32bit, comples 
set of control signals, high speed and nontrivial design.

When you say architecture are you refering to the SYSTEM or the CPU 
or maybe the memory each has oe and can vary widely.  I'd argue that
a LSI-11/03 system is easier to usnderstand than a SPARC system on the 
whole despite the more complex CPU of the PDP-11.  The PDP-11 at the 
system level is not one archetecture, the 11/03 is trivial compared to 
the 11/70 with cache and multiple busses.  That would be a good example
of the difference between system implmentation and CPU archetecture too.
In that case the 11/70 is highend and the 11/03 is lowend.

Allison