Talk:One instruction set computer

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Is this useful?

I.e, is there a point in building computers with this technique?

See Esoteric_programming_languages

"Usability is rarely a high priority for such languages. The usual aim is to remove or replace conventional language features while still maintaining a language that is Turing-complete. Thus, by adhering to some principles while deliberately making no sense as a whole, these languages are perhaps the programming equivalent of nonsense verse."

Well, it can theoretically do quite a lot, and in fact it can probably do anything at all. It's just harder to do everything :-) --Ihope127 16:10, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Interesting question.

What about logarithm, I mean before few thousands of them where tabulated?

And Babbage's machines, which I am sure Ada Lovelace would have started debugging with the passion of a pioneer?

And FORTAN: how many time did it integrate bravely EXP(-X/DKAY)*COS(2.0*PI*X+PHAS) in a manageable handful set of punch cards before someone eventually thought of wasting 0.032 seconds of its Wednesday compile time budget to print "1H(1)***HELLO_WORD***" somewhere in the twenty page cabalistic listing.

About the suggested merges, I strongly advocate in favor

• OISC, SBN and URISC are minor variants. In facts, three out of 8 possible (and equivalent) options. In my opinion, the less user-unpractical is an (I think) undocumented reverse-subtract-and-branch-if-negative-or-zero.
• The distinction is however spurious because, if OISC come to practical life, humans will probably never code more than the one needed interface instruction.
• Moreover, nothing grants that the type of variant actually used, or produced, will be quanticaly observable.

AlainD 23:29, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I am strongly in favor of URISC being made a subsection of OISC. OISC should refer to all possible machines with one instruction, and all should be in one place. ---

In favor of all merges. However OISC should be the encompassing article. It referes to the framework within which all these other phenomenon exist. --66.112.246.75 04:33, 28 June 2006 (UTC)