Talk:Computer architecture

To do. Please write a brief definition or description of this article at Computer architecture/Definition.

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first comment

Link from Computer is missing. Should IMHO also be part of a Electrical Engineering Workgroup. Except that none exists. --Markus Baumeister 15:22, 9 March 2007 (CST)

moved stuff into here from Computer

I moved a lot of stuff into here. It's a mess right now, and some of it may belong instead in history of computing. But it fits here, for the moment, better than in Computers, which is intended just to be an overview.Pat Palmer 16:10, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

Update to checklist

It seems the article is no longer underlinked, updating the article checklist, I also think this is more than a stub.

It is not a stub anymore, because several sections were moved from Computer into here. However, those sections originally came from Wikipedia, so very little has been done to revise this material so far. I agree with status 2, though.Pat Palmer 11:54, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

memory management unit needs to be included here somewhere, somehow

Virtual memory, and the MMU (memory management unit) or other hunk of hardware that helps translate between virtual and physical addresses, needs to be part of this article, or else, this article needs to point off to (sub)articles about virtual memory and MMU's. This article seems to be about physical memory only. Pat Palmer 14:07, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

saved 2 paragraphs from top of article

These may belong somewhere, but I didn't like them where they were (at the top) for now. I'm saving them here temporarily:Pat Palmer 11:56, 23 September 2007 (CDT)

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Computer Architectures can span multiple purposes such as general desktop computing as in the case of the x86, PowerPC and SPARC architectures, or more specific purposes such as embedded computing where the ARM and 680x0 processor lines are preferred. The lines tend to blur though on exactly what system architecture is best and ultimately is left up to the engineer designing the system. For instance, the Intel 386 processor (X86 family) appeared initially on desktop and server systems for its first run but now resigns itself to small embedded devices because the power requirements and cost per unit is much less than faster processors which typically are not necessary.

The Motorola 68000 series processors once powered Apple's line of computers before being replaced by PowerPC and now Intel X86 processors. The 68000 can now be found in embedded platforms and in antiquated legacy hardware that has not been replaced with newer, faster systems.

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needs complete rewrite/reorg

I want to rewrite this article from the ground up. It's a mess. If someone came here trying to get started on the topic, they would very soon get lost. We can do better. Don't know when I'll get around to it, but it needs a restart. Also, there is quite a bit of imprecise, and even inaccurate, information there. It all needs to be documented carefully as we go. Probably there need to be lots of sub-articles pointing off to indepth-discussion of certain concepts, with this article just acting as the area where all the concepts are organized together, like the spoke of a bicycle wheel. So be warned that I may gut this thing and "start over" (though I will save everything for reference when I do). Anyone else want to make a stab at i?Pat Palmer 13:04, 23 September 2007 (CDT)