04-25-2014, 09:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-25-2014, 09:58 PM by Cutlassw30.)
MIPS is cool and all but I think its "too RISC". No push/pop commands mean you need a software stack which adds a lot of overhead. It also uses memory mapped I/O and while a lot of good processors did use this (MOS 6502 for example) I prefer port mapped I/O for a simpler memory map and programming model. Also the big downside is that MIPS is a fixed length ISA which means code uses a lot of RAM. This is generally not a bad thing for RISC but in MIPS case a lot of bits just go to waste (For example 5 bits EVERY instruction are used as a SHAMT which may only be used with shifting but is wasted space in other RR-type instructions). This is probably why MIPS never caught on and ARM/x86 still rule the market.