On 1 Feb 99, at 8:13, David Nasser wrote:

> In general, risc processors require _more_ instruction cycles
> (because the instructions, on average, are more fundamental) to run
> an application, but execute the individual instructions more quickly.
> They are sometimes referred to as "load and store" computers because
> of their instruction's relative (to cisc) simplicity.

  On some CISC architectures, there are single complex instructions
that will change the contents of a specified memory location in
specified ways.  On RISC CPUs, this almost always corresponds to at
least 3 instructions:

   LOAD (mem location -> register)
   <modify value in register>
   STORE (register -> mem location)

A CISC machine often has some kinds of value modification that can be
done without the separate LOAD and STORE instructions.
  And the use of a register.  Because of this consideration, RISC CPUs
tend to provide many more general-purpose registers than CISC CPUs do.


David G

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