MISC - just what is it.

[Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Richard S. Westmoreland" wrote:
> 
> The ForthChip.com website is now open!  The site will bring to you a range
> of articles concerning M.I.S.C. (Minimal Instruction Set Computer)
> Architecture, and how it is involved with Forth.  Much of the content is
> provided courtesy of Jeff Fox at UltraTechnology.  I hope to be joining
> forces with many Forth oriented companies, to provide the Forth and MISC
> community with a intercepting-point of resources.

Just what is M.I.S.C. (Minimal Instruction Set Computer)?
The Forth chip is for sure the Minimal Instruction Set Computer for Forth.
For a single accumulator machine the MPROZ ftp://137.193.64.130/pub/mproz/
is a clean design. What about a general Stack Machine for a language like
tiny C. 
Playing around with TLL Logic for my own computer design, I come
up with design that would be about 4 8x10 cards.Looking other ways
to implement my design like PAL'S & Bitslices or FPGA's I came to the
conclusion that FPGA's* make crummy hardware. Yet custom crummy hardware
is faster than general purpose machines because everybody has design
optimized for the task at hand. Perhaps the design of the future
is Minimal Emulation Instruction Set Computer. This not a micro programed
machine but something like the F2x's but you have new instructions to help
decode opcodes that are emulated for simulating
other machines. I am not sure how to keep them "Low
Fat" while they are infrequent if you can get the hardware to do 
bit fiddling it helps a good deal. The F2x's themselves would
have problems with 8/16 bit data as most machines still use that.
Ben. 
* The only FPGA I like is the Anti-fuse chips from Actel. The logic block
while only a gated 4-1 multiplexer block ( You can have any 3 variable function
)it does more than other companies logic  (any function of 4 inputs) because you
can 4-1 multiplexers with 1 logic cell. 
-- 
"We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents...
 We borrow it from our children."
"Octal Computers:Where a step backward is two steps forward!"
 http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html