http://www.ddj.com/embedded/221800122Really interesting. Describes a new chip architecture called TTA (Transfer Triggered Architecture). The chip has only one instruction, an analog to 'mov', and moving memory around on the chip triggers the remaining functionality.
One of the original "Star Trek" television episodes involves patients at a facility for the criminally insane. One of the inmates quotes some lines from Shakespeare and announces that she wrote it yesterday. Another character tells her that it had been written by the bard in the past. The woman replies, "Which does not alter the fact that I wrote it again yesterday!"
I suppose in the computer industry it is particularly difficult these days to have a truly original idea, even if you arrive at your idea independent of prior work. I had that experience several years ago. I had just finished a 16-bit CPU design based loosely on Caxton Foster's Blue machine in his excellent (albeit dated) book Computer Architecture. (Yes, I do have strange hobbies.) Like Foster's original, my machine has what I think of as a 1970's minicomputer architecture -- its very similar to a DEC or DG or HP machine from that era. I was contemplating starting a new project using some sort of RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture. RISC's advantages are well known. Simplifying the CPU core by reducing the complexity of the instruction set allows faster speeds, more registers, and pipelining to provide the appearance of single cycle execution. RISC has been so popular that even your PC today probably uses a RISC core that is emulating a non-RISC processor!
