This is mostly Knuth/TeX/TAOCP history rehash. To me it is a little creepily tinged with religious language (TAOCP as a Bible of CS, disciples must carry on TeX

This is mostly Knuth/TeX/TAOCP history rehash. To me it is a little creepily tinged with religious language (TAOCP as a Bible of CS, disciples must carry on TeX) -- not because religion is creepy, just a strange juxtaposition here IMHO with humble Knuth. I'd speculate that the author couldn't reconcile his religiosity. This was new and HN-interesting: > Before he can rest in the promised land, Knuth faces one last mountain. He must redesign the generalized computer used in his book for programming examples and exercises from a 50-year-old von Neumann-style machine with inefficient commands to a more modern RISC (reduced instruction set computer) system permitting faster operation. (Intel processors in most PCs are of the older variety; PowerPC chips in recent Macintosh models are RISC.) “I’m trying to design it so it’s 10 years ahead of its time,” says Knuth. “I’ve studied all the machines we have now and tried to take their nicest features and put them all together.” This super RISC machine, which he calls MMIX, is essentially a teaching concept. But he says he “would love to see it built. I’m spending a lot of time documenting it so someone could build it. The design will be in the public domain.” In the midst of his “Computer Musings” series of introductory talks on MMIX, Knuth is mere months away from completing this phase of his work.