I think you're too hung up on the name. My memory's a little fuzzy, and I'm no expert here, but in that day the question was one of CPU architecture and the pat

I think you're too hung up on the name. My memory's a little fuzzy, and I'm no expert here, but in that day the question was one of CPU architecture and the path forward. Risc put forth the idea that reducing the instruction set would open up more doors in your silicon/design budget to produce faster CPUs compared to ever more elaborate instructions which hope shrink the total instruction counts. It was always about architecture not (at least mostly) about interface. I'm not sure how much this dichotomy really plays out in the present, I think the architectural lessons have been learned and applied everywhere. That's how I was taught it atleast.