RISC : Java Glossary

RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer). A computer than uses a
simplified instruction set that can be implemented without microcode. In contrast
CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) uses an instruction set
that closely mirrors some high level language. The Pentium computers are the main
remaining CISC architecture. It is quite antiquated as an
architecture, designed originally for assembler coding rather than high level
compilation. It was designed back when registers were very expensive. It has far too
few registers for a modern CPU (Central Processing Unit) chip. The other emerging
CISC
instruction set is the Java JVM (Java Virtual Machine). The main advantage of
CISC
is very compact machine code. Java class files are often several orders of magnitude
smaller than other representations. See this biased but informative essay on the advantages of
RISC.