Article on CISC vs RISC

[JamesD]

I found this while searching for some info on RISC instruction sets.
There is a comparison between MIPS R2000 and the 80386.
The difference in code density is much less than I expected.
http://www.proenergia.net/ftp/colarte/Cursos%20Academicos/ARQUITECTURA%20DE%20COMPUTADORES/CLASES/1A.%20THE%20VON%20NEUMANN%20MODEL/Material%20Adicional/risc_cisc.pdf

[JamesD]

Some of the articles referenced at the end are interesting as well

[JamesD]

I posted it here because of the regular claims about the 6502 being RISC or influencing RISC.

[GroovyBee]

I had a quick look and they based their investigation on the instructions generated by a compiler from a given algorithm. To me, that is mostly a test of compiler efficiency and not much else.

[JamesD]

I had a quick look and they based their investigation on the instructions generated by a compiler from a given algorithm. To me, that is mostly a test of compiler efficiency and not much else.

I've seen assembly language programmers avoid using some instructions because it's faster to use others so you can't expect compilers to use them all.

The age of the article is a problem since compilers have improved since then.

Edited August 9, 2015 by JamesD