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OS X designed for CISC, not RISC
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: canada
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As mentioned on slashdot,
an unsanity developer has posted in their weblog
that after inspecting os x's mach-o abi, it seems as though it makes use of legacy 68k code (i.e. CISC) instead of speeding things up by redesigning to make use of PowerPC chips.
Ah well. Things could always have been done better I guess, we would have just had to wait longer.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: In my tree making cookies
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already covered a few threads down. [url]http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=128416[url]
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Moderator  Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
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DOS was designed for an 8 bit chip. But it also ran on my 486 (32 bit)). So what.
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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2002
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and wasn't os 9 and under designed originally for the same 68k chip?
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Tampa, Florida
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Is a CISC PowerPC CPU even possible? Call the AMD company! 
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Chile
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was thinking the same thing, is it possible to have CISC PowerPC ?
Sounds more like they are keeping "our options open" so they can adopt other architecture.
Sarc
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:: frankenstein / lcd-less TiBook / 1GHz / radeon 9000 64MB / 1GB RAM / w/ext. 250GB fw drive / noname usb bluetooth dongle / d-link usb 2.0 pcmcia card / X.5.8
:: unibody macbook pro / 2.4 Ghz C2D / 6GB RAM / dell 2407wfp - X.6.3
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2001
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CISC vs RISC is explained at www.arstechnica.com for those of you who don't understand it quite well.
PowerPC is a trademark so if whoever owns it decides to make RISC chips and call them PPC then it is possible but if you mean is it possible to have a RISC/CISC (ie half and half) processor then the answere is yes.
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You arent special. You dont have value just because you were born. You are a net drain on the planet. Respect must be earned & your value must be proven. Endangered species are special, & their survival should take priority over your comfort.
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Senior User
Join Date: Oct 2001
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Originally posted by OreoCookie:
DOS was designed for an 8 bit chip. But it also ran on my 486 (32 bit)). So what.
The 486 is fully compatible to the 8088. PowerPCs however lack the 68k PC register, which the Mach-O format supposedly is making heavy use of.
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Stink different.
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Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Rochester, uk
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It's not that it uses code from 68k. Rather, it uses the PowerPC as if it were a CISC - particularly in the use of 68k specific registers, and so on. These registers basically get emulated on a PowerPC. All in all, it's not a very efficient design.
The article says that it results in something like a 10% performance hit on most code. With Moore's Law creaking at the edges, and Apple trailing behind in all things speed-related, this is a significant difference - if it's true.
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All words are lies. Including these ones.
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Banned
Join Date: Sep 2000
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Evident from most of the posts on this thread that nobody actually bothered to read the piece by the Unsanity guy, or, if they did, they're too stupid or unschooled to comprehend it. (Last poster excluded from this.)
Anyway, as has already been said, there's already a thread on this: use it.
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Banned
Join Date: Aug 2002
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I always said Apple made sure the OS and the graphics display model was made slow to make people upgrade their Macs. And now Unsanity developer's agree:
'Either way, there is no way to change the ABI now, as it would break all of the existing applications - which is obviously not what Apple (or us) would want.
And after all, who cares about a 10% speed loss? You can always get a faster Mac, right?'
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