Talk:VAX/Archives/2021
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Lede
Guy Harris: Hi Guy. I want to quibble about the lede sentence. The most significant things about the VAX were 32 bit architecture and virtual memory. RISC was still mostly a research project in the mid-1970s when the VAX was developed. While it could physically handle larger memory, the PDP-11 was limited to 16-bit addressing and that was becoming a major problem. (I got to argue with Gordon Bell about this, he said programmers should write modular code.) Competitors were starting to introduce larger address spaces, e.g. Interdata. VAX was somewhat late to the game. I think the lede should say something like "VAX is a 32-bit computer with virtual memory developed by the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the mid-1970s." and later "Like most computers of this era, the VAX was a complex instruction set computer (CISC). Its instruction set architecture (ISA) was designed for backwards compatibility..."--agr (talk) 13:21, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
- @ArnoldReinhold: I think it needs to be stated explicitly, somewhere, that it's CISC, using the word or phrase; I agree it doesn't need to be in the first sentence. IBM System/360 and IBM System/360 architecture both state it only in the infobox, so that might be sufficient. (Motorola 68000 and Motorola 68000 series, however, do state it in the first sentence.)
- (I wouldn't call it "a 32-bit computer"; it's a line of 32-bit computers - or a 32-bit line of computers.) Guy Harris (talk) 20:36, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
- Well, 32 bit computer architecture. The architecture can exist even if no implementations are every built. Gah4 (talk) 22:48, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
- +1 for "32-bit instruction set architecture" or similar Vt320 (talk) 23:01, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
- As far as I know, the name is used both for the ISA and the line of machines that implement it, as is the case for the various flavors of System/3x0 and for the PDP-11 (three architectures for which implementations were built). Guy Harris (talk) 23:19, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
- Yes architecture names are commonly used for the line of machines, at least until clones appear and there is ambiguity. It could also refer to a specific machine inside a computer center, with only one machine of a specific architecture. Outside of a computer center, it should be ... architecture, or as noted, ... line of machines. Gah4 (talk) 12:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
- As far as I know, the name is used both for the ISA and the line of machines that implement it, as is the case for the various flavors of System/3x0 and for the PDP-11 (three architectures for which implementations were built). Guy Harris (talk) 23:19, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
- +1 for "32-bit instruction set architecture" or similar Vt320 (talk) 23:01, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
- Well, 32 bit computer architecture. The architecture can exist even if no implementations are every built. Gah4 (talk) 22:48, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
- VAX was a trademark of DEC and was used to refer to the family of computers. The underlying architecture was referred to simply as the VAX architecture, as was the case for the System/360, PDP-11, DG Nova, etc. Clones may have used the architecture but could not legally call themselves VAX, I've edited the lede to reflect that and moved the CISC mention lower down. Used series of computers to match the PDP-11 article, but I have no objection to line or family.--agr (talk) 23:12, 27 December 2021 (UTC)