> ... there was no big gap between processing speed and memory access, but this makes it very unlikely that similar architectures will ever come back. ...
Don't think "memory access" (i.e. RAM), think "accessing generic (addressable) scratchpad storage" as a viable alternative to both low-level cache and a conventional register file. This is not too different from how GPU low-level architectures might be said to work these days.
Great point. And you can even extend that to think like a 6502 or GPU programmer on an AMD, ARM or Intel CPU as well if you want the very best performance. Caches are big enough on modern CPUs that you can almost run portions of your code in the same manner. I bet TPUs at Google also qualify.
Don't think "memory access" (i.e. RAM), think "accessing generic (addressable) scratchpad storage" as a viable alternative to both low-level cache and a conventional register file. This is not too different from how GPU low-level architectures might be said to work these days.