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The tag appears to be just a meta-tag with its current usage.

There are four questions tagged with it at the moment, of these three are also tagged with the specific CPU that is relevant to the question. The other is a highly downvoted list question that would be better tagged with - the CPU relevant to it.

It would make more sense if questions were tagged with the relevant CPU type.

Should we add to the burnination bonfire?

2 Answers 2

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I'm new to SE so I can't say for certain but it seems unnecessary to me. Any question broad enough to just need the CPU tag would probably be too broad to be a good question anyway. Anything narrow enough to be a good question should just need the tag for the specific CPU (or CPUs) it deals with.

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    Yeah it's hard to see where this would really serve any purpose, it's hard to imagine someone asking a question about a CPU in a retro machine without knowing what it actually is, and it's not hard information to find.
    – Matt Lacey Mod
    Commented May 26, 2016 at 3:42
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    Plus if someone does not know what CPU is in the machine, that's where editing tags on another's questions to improve it comes in to play.
    – knghtbrd
    Commented May 28, 2016 at 22:38
  • What if the question related to the behavior of said CPU, such as "what do these undocumented instructions do"?
    – peter ferrie
    Commented Feb 21, 2017 at 21:22
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    @peterferrie I still think you'd be better off to tag that with the specific CPU since that addresses a question with answers that only apply to that particular CPU, not CPUs in general.
    – mnem
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 6:46
  • thanks, that makes sense to me.
    – peter ferrie
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 16:14
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    @MattLacey If you are asking about the CPU in a retro machine but don't know what CPU that would be, you can at least tag with the specific machine (like apple-ii, ibm-pc, zx-spectrum, ...), at which point [cpu] still doesn't really add anything. I know I'm a little late to the game here, but I still think this answer pretty much sums it up.
    – user
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 18:00
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While I can agree to the argument made by mnem, I still would like to have that tag. After all, a tagging system only earns it's merits when there are many, potentially overlapping terms. Otherwise it degrates into a simple classification system/list.

Second using only 'specific' tags doesn't help against tag piles. They are still prone to overlaping. Just take for example this question about Apples floppy controller (and controllers in general). Beside the Disk II tag (*1) there's the Apple II tag. For a strict system it would need to be removed, but then again, this question might as well be of interest to people seatching information about the Apple II. Much like the CPU tag - when people look for question related to CPUs, not whole systems or perhiperals or whatsoever.

So give generic tags a chance.

*1 - I still think the usage of psudo numerals or any kind of marketing related spelling should not be encuraged in RC. After all, it's not just II with the apple, but also II+, IIplus, //c, //e ||gs or ][ (and ÜÄ :)). So Apple 2 (or Apple2) would be way more fiting as general tag for all machines of the II series. The reason that tags are unified all lower case is to get rid of spelling games.

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    I take your point. Maybe we could then have a tag [generic-cpu] which would be used on questions alone, without needing a specific tag, such as [68000] or [Z80] to go with it. I still feel that [cpu] itself is a pure meta-tag.
    – Chenmunka Mod
    Commented Aug 4, 2018 at 9:08

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