

Ten lies about microprocessors - mixmax
http://www.embedded.com/story/OEG20030610S0041

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jrockway
_Garbage collection, threads, stack orientation, and object management take
about a megabyte worth of Java virtual machine to translate into something
that even today's fastest microprocessors struggle to execute._

"Struggle to execute"? Is that why JVM languages are some of the fastest
languages out there? 1996 called, it wants its FUD about the JVM back.

Edit: Nevermind. The article is from 2003. (2003 called. It wants its article
back.)

~~~
maxklein
I think what the guy means is that if you tried to implement garbage
collection, threading and object management using registers, flip flops and
PROM, you'll end up with such large circuits that your chip would become way
slower, not to speak of being extremely complex.

Byte code is not assembler like ASM, it has some pretty high level functions
in there that are quite difficult to implement on a very low level.

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mindslight
> Compared to the big 68030, 29000, and 486DX chips of the day, the wee ARM6
> consumed less total energy than the others gave off as heat

wtf? All energy 'consumed' by a processor is given off as heat. Such incorrect
hyperbole makes me doubt the entire article.

~~~
michaelneale
that can't be all true - isn't some of it as radiated energy in RF spectrum?

~~~
pmorici
He wasn't saying that the only energy given off was that or heat or that all
energy put in was given off as heat he said, you could run the arm processor
on the portion of energy given off as heat.

~~~
Retric
Processors transition around 95%+ of their energy to heat so it's not a
significant statement. (A little is used to communicate with RAM etc.)

