Word: processors
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...stand in the way of information; not much of a novelist but a hell of an educator. On the other hand, scientists have been known to say he saws the limb off behind him; no hotshot in the lab but a hell of a tap dancer with a word processor. Crichton is used to the charges. "Feeling conflicted, different, has been a fact of my life," Crichton told the Los Angeles Times. "Someone once compared me to a bat. 'Put a bat among birds,' he said, 'and they call it a mammal. Put it among mammals and they call...
Microprocessors can be divided into two groups: CISC chips and RISC chips. The two architectures are fundamentally different approaches to processor performance, which is the measurement of how long it takes for the chip to perform a task using three factors: cycles per instruction, time per cycle and instructions per task...
Cycles per instruction and time per cycle together determine processor speed; if a chip can execute one instruction per cycle and can operate at 100 million cycles per second or 100 MHz, the computer can execute 100 million instructions per second or 100 MIPS...
...other words, a RISC processor reduces the number of cycles per instruction and reduces the time per cycle, but increases the number of instructions per task. A CISC processor, on the other hand, requires fewer instructions per task but typically processes fewer instructions per second. However, since compilers rarely generate complex instructions, RISC chips should be able to be pushed faster and faster, while CISC performance must plateau...
Each architecture represents a series of tough trade-offs. CISC's major problem is that a processor which allows many instructions is difficult to design and difficult to speed up; RISC chips are easier to develop and easier to speed up. The RISC architecture, however, requires greater memory and hard disk space than the CISC architecture, as most PowerMac owners will readily attest...