CISC is an acronym for Complex Instruction Set Computer. It is a processor design philosophy favoring larger and more complex sets of instructions, that usually execute in many, and varying numbers of, clock cycles and varying amounts of time. This makes programs slower, and smaller, needing less bus bandwidth, memory (RAM), and storage (disk). Common CISC processors (and original makers): 68k (Motorola), TRON, x86 (Intel), Z-80 (Zilog).