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> When the AMD Opteron came out in 2003, did Windows 95 run on it? I don't think so. It did. That was the whole point of AMD64, as opposed to Itanium: It runs
by creshal 10y ago
> When the AMD Opteron came out in 2003, did Windows 95 run on it? I don't think so.
It did. That was the whole point of AMD64, as opposed to Itanium: It runs all the legacy crap you could possibly wish to.
- pavlov 10y agoI have a feeling (but no facts at hand) that Win95 wouldn't boot on an Opteron. Even though x86 was more or less constant, BIOS and associated base drivers did change over time. For comparison, PC-DOS 2.1 wouldn't be expected to boot on a Pentium either. It's not a reasonable expectation even in compatibility-obsessed traditional Wintel land.
- userbinator 10y agoLook on YouTube, there are people running very old OSes on very new hardware. And DOS is even simpler to "support" because it doesn't need much.
- creshal 10y agoYeah, all the DOS backwards compatibility is delivered by the BIOS. Which, in form of legacy CSMs, even exists on modern UEFI machines.
- pavlov 10y agoI guess you're right. I could have sworn that at the x64 junction, they intentionally broke compatibility with booting a 16-bit real mode OS... But quick googling doesn't seem to support that.