govern (10/26/82)
The July 1982 issue of Berkeley's engineering alumni newsletter described the Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC), a micro designed by several CS and VLSI courses at UCB. The objectives were: 1) design a better architecture for high-level languages, and 2) Simplify the instruction set, and therefore the control section of the chip, to permit high efficiency and higher speeds. The chip was in testing at the time the article was written, and no errors had been found in the parts that had been tested. Simulation indicated that the computer would be about 4 times as fast as existing micros for compiled high-level-language programs (whatever that means). Has anything happened since then? Are we about to see the new Berzerkely Home Computer? Will it fade out and die? Does anyone at Berkeley know about it? Thanks; Bill Stewart BTL-Holmdel