Demography?

From: lisard_at_zetnet.co.uk <(lisard_at_zetnet.co.uk)>
Date: Mon Mar 2 16:32:48 1998

On 1998-03-01 classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu said to lisard_at_zetnet.co.uk
   :On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Captain Napalm wrote:
   :> Writable control stores: Don't count these out just yet. The new
   :>HP machines based upon the HP-PA stuff does have a writable
   :>control store. My friend has one of these boxes at home and he's
   :>been planning on playing around with this.

   :I've heard that even Pentiums will let you patch their microcode,

yes? details...? *perk up noticeably*

   :but the idea as a general theme seems to be dead. I don't know the
   :reason for this except for speed and cost issues.

we suspect it has something to do with microcode in general going out of
fashion. these days even cisc machines are built with risc cores
surrounded by hardware-based translators. some of the pentium clones
even let you program them in their native languages.

also, it's a bit difficult to write to a control store that's hardwired
in silicon inside a plastic case... :< probably a better bet these days
is to write a little inner interpreter for a risc, and it probably
amounts to much the same thing.

   :True, some people are condemned to repeat history, but I'm willing
   :to bet that hardware byte-code engines will be pulled back into the
   :tar pit before they leave the cave at Sun (and other places). I
   :listed to a talk given by a Sun engineer on why they should build
   :these things, and the reasons he gave (such as byte-code is more
   :compact than other code) are really hard to buy. Defintely a
   :solution looking for a problem.

there's only one reason why sun could want to do this - cheap java-only
set-top boxes. it's a great way of locking out the competition (and
given their current legal activities, you'd think they'd learn...) but
whether it would make for the most efficient java platform is another
matter.

of course, there's also the proof-of-concept motive. "see? java *is*
efficient, we've even built a chip with it..."

   :True again. p-Code made more sense then (when there was more than
   :one dominant architecture) than Java does now, but if Sun ever buys
   :into the idea of Java compiled to native code, there still may be
   :more hope for Java than there was for UCSD Pascal.

well, if they do buy into that idea, let's hope it's at download time
rather than with these damned silly just-in-time thingies (which only
win if you execute a method more than once, and how do you know that
until it's too late...?) elate (was taos) shows the way to go if you
want platform independence these days, in our opinion.


-- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...

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Received on Mon Mar 02 1998 - 16:32:48 GMT