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The lead presently says:
Reduced instruction set computing, or RISC (pronounced 'risk', /ɹɪsk/), is a CPU design strategy based on the insight that a simplified instruction set provides higher performance when combined with a microprocessor architecture capable of executing those instructions using fewer microprocessor cycles per instruction. A computer based on this strategy is a reduced instruction set computer, also called RISC. The opposing architecture is called complex instruction set computing (CISC).
There's a few problems here besides the issue raised at Talk:Reduced instruction set computer#Requested move 10 May 2017:
I've improved the lead as best I can, but given the complexity of the topic, it's probably still be inadequate. 50504F (talk) 07:35, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
This seems like a grab-bag of different RISC architectures with arbitrary categories. Why are gaming systems considered low-end? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Indolering (talk • contribs) 03:38, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
It is a common game to claim (computer X is the first risc) based on some simplified definition of "what is risc?". The book making the claim that ACE is RISC is visible on Google Books here (for me at least, YMMV).
The (relatively short) article in question defines risc in a somewhat hand-waving manner, saying "no one at the time would agree with this definition" which is (top of page 199) essentially of "microcode slows execution, and long pipelines are slow and have interlocks". That is a rough description I could find much to agree with.
Then he attempts to link the two with the arguments that in ACE, "ease of programming had knowingly been sacrificed to speed", followed by sections noting it lacked microprogramming, that it could be simplified using interpreters, and then concluding "We can indeed conclude that the ACE is a RISC machine in the sense of having an architecture heavily influenced by the design of the computer".
None of these statements are part of the definition he posts. This is not surprising, as none of the definitional ideas even existed and would take the better part of a decade to emerge. The fact that it didn't have them is akin to claiming that horse carriages are really ICE automobiles because engines didn't exist at the time and the designers were all interested in speed.
If I sound dismissive, I am. Regardless of Turing's original desires, ACE emerged as a pretty bog-standard drum machine. That is by no means a denigration - it's bog standard because everyone used the concepts he helped develop. But the claim that it is a proto-RISC fails by the author's own definition as no machines of the era had the very features he quotes as definitional.
I'm not averse to new claims for first, but I am rather averse to the sort of hand-waving, wooly-headed argument presented in this article and the claim demands much better support in order to deserve being included here. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
I've been thinking that it would make sense to merge the CISC page into the RISC page. The problem is that the RISC and CISC page have a lot of overlap and mostly cover the same history and information, so they are largely redundant (when they aren't contradictory). As WP:OVERLAP says, "Remember, that Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept. For example, "flammable" and "non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on flammability." This is the case with RISC and CISC.
I'm not saying that CISC is unimportant, of course. But since CISC is essentially defined in opposition to RISC, you can't really discuss one without the other. There isn't a lot to say about CISC independent of RISC. I think that combining the pages would improve both of them. The CISC page is weak on citations so I was looking into improving it, but I realized that I would end up duplicating most of the RISC material and combining the pages would make more sense. KenShirriff (talk) 21:22, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
I recommend based on information, I think the two articles should not be merged and left as they are. Happyevengood (talk) 13:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)