As computers chip continue to decrease in fabrication size, manufacturers such as AMD and Intel are researching new ways to overcome physical barriers. Die size, performance, operating frequency and heat are all major obstacles in the semiconductor industry. Sun Microsystems announced that in partnership with Luxtera, Kotura and Stanford University, it is working on an ambitions project to move data transmissions from electrical signals over copper wires to pulses of light using lasers.
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Member since:2006-09-30
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-06-30
Well, x86 may be fine for most applications, but virtualisation has always been one of x86's troubles. Although the introduction of hardware support for it helps much, it is not going to be perfect since it was not designed with Popek and Goldberg virtualisation requirements in mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popek_and_Goldberg_virtualization_requ...
Another fact is that the x86 is now a RISC chip core emulating a CISC chip. Why not just produce to a RISC design, instead of wasting cpu cycles on translating them?
Moreover, the sheer size of the mindshare in x86 is distorting the market. A few years before, I heard of peripheral devices using MIPS as their intermediate processor between the raw device/data and the system. Reasons cited for such a decision was cost and ease of development. Personally, having tried a bit of MIPS and x86 assembly, the MIPS architecture is easier to work with. If more resources had been diverted away from x86 to MIPS/SPARC/POWER, Apple would not have to move away from PPC.
Last but not least, it is the trouble of legacy. Although backwards compliance is touted as a feature, it can be a horrible curse. Many old code contain bugs that are next to impossible to eradicate. Also, it helps in maintaining binary blobs -- a reason why Windows 64bit series are seldom sold is because of its reliance on 32bit binary blobs, which means much less drivers. While linux has had much ease in the transition to 64bit, nVidia drivers posed such a problem. In fact, the lack of nVidia drivers for PPC hindered mac to linux OS migrations in the past.
ps: been editing but simply cannot make links that don't show the full url, only the title of document
Edited 2008-03-26 13:24 UTC
Member since:2005-07-18
Although backwards compliance is touted as a feature, it can be a horrible curse.
Good point.
I haven't checked, but I bet current Pentiums still implement the SAHF and LAHF instructions. I believe these were implemented in the Intel8088 to make it easier to port existing 8080 and Z80 software 30 years ago. If they haven't already been dropped, they should be. Any OS that's inclined to support them could implement an exception handler.
Member since:2006-10-08
As far as I know, x86 based processors were beaten by MIPS processors (usually built into fine SGI machines) regarding iteration speed which is important for scientific applicances. In most cases when x86 industry came up with something "new", "fast" or "revolutionary", I could laugh: "Hmmm well, we do have this in non-x86 world for years already." So I welcome everything that beats x86 in any regards. :-)
Member since:
2006-05-02
Would there be any technical advantage in dumping the x86 legacy instead of on-going compatibility? If so, could you provide some more explanation and/or a link to an informative web page?
Thanks heaps,
Detlef