For year now, the x86 microprocessor market has been dominated by Intel and AMD, and the rivalry between the two companies forced both to be innovative in order to gain a competitive advantage over the other - benefiting customers. With the rise of 'mobile internet devices' and low-power budget notebooks, this new market will be enriched by not only Via, but also nVIDIA.
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Member since:2006-01-12
Microsoft engineers have said that it wouldn't be hard to port Windows NT kernel to new platform, they did it on IA-64. But truth is that there is very little markets for such a product. It's intresting to see if Nvidia based machines will use Windows Mobile 7 like Qualcomm new ones.
Member since:2006-06-11
I was thinking that I read a long time ago that NT wasn't originally developed on x86 hardware. This bit from Wikipedia confirms it:
In order to prevent Intel x86-specific code from slipping into the operating system by developers used to developing on x86 chips, Windows NT 3.1 was initially developed using non-x86 development systems and then ported to the x86 architecture.
NT runs on 3 architechtures right now: x86, x64, and IA64. Portability doesn't seem to be an issue. Userland may be a whole different issue though.
Edited 2008-06-06 04:44 UTC
Member since:2007-08-22
Except with regards to what Intel's Atom and similar processors (such as this one from nVidia) - Linux and the BSDs would likely be competing with WinCE, which is already on ARM, probably MIPS too. (If I recall correctly, most WinCE devices are ARM-based, not x86-based; at least historically.)
BTW, when a vendor wants to support WinCE, they get the source code to modify too - at least for device manufacturers. So they can port it to whatever platform they choose to.
Member since:
2005-07-06
One advantage that Linux and the BSD's have in this arena is portability. There are already ARM ports. Windows currently is tied to X86, even though NT was ported to Alpha and MIPS, so perhaps it could again be ported (I doubt it). Instead, only Windows Mobile competes in this realm. I afraid I'd much rather have a nice Ubuntu or FreeBSD with Firefox or Konqueror than WM with IE. Go Free OS's!