5 ms·

Given the entire OS would still be native, it might not be too bad for certain classes of applications. You would expect games to perform terribly but standard

Given the entire OS would still be native, it might not be too bad for certain classes of applications. You would expect games to perform terribly but standard corporate desktop applications would probably perform pretty well. Many of our critical corporate applications were designed a decade ago -- so you just have to emulate the average desktop performance from those days.

Havoc 10y ago
>standard corporate desktop applications would probably perform pretty well. Don't say such evil things. Spend half my days being frustrated by corporate software. .net software that runs on a modern i7 ultrabook with SSD. Doesn't do anything wild (mostly buttons & menus)...yet its bloody slow. HOW???
- youdounderstand 10y ago
  Undoubtedly due to blocking the UI thread on I/O.
  - darrylb42 10y ago
    and the slow database backend
  - i336_ 10y ago
    Or an overabundance of I/O. A friend showed me the industry-standard database app used to manage most Internet-connected second-hand bookshops (I think). Its development decisions went something like: "Hey, let's be sooooo awesome and update the search results live, as you type! Wow, without even a one-second delay this is SO REALTIME - like we're in 2187" (later) "Do we need to index the database? ...eh, nah. I don't think our custom database solution even supports indexing. Kay." In my friend's case the store he's at has tens of thousands of books. Cue perpetual SSD replacements by all the shops using this software My approach to using it (when my friend and I were discussing it while I visited) was to hit Win+R to obtain a text box, type my search string, then ^C/ESC/^V it over. The database app would lock up for about 1.2 seconds per keypress.
    - nine_k 10y ago
      Acceptance testing? Load testing? No, never heard of those :-/
  - wfunction 10y ago
    The problem is there shouldn't be much so I/O for loading programs in the first place, but .NET loves loading an exabyte from the disk whenever any program runs.
- Maarten88 10y ago
  > yet its bloody slow. HOW??? The button calls into a recently developed micro-service, that calls into a previous-generation SOAP webservice, that sends a message to the enterprise service bus, that then goes to netweaver middleware, that calls into the SAP R/3 backend that has been there since 1992 but was recently upgraded to use an even more expensive database. Of course, the button has to wait for the response of all this, and blocks the UI while waiting...
  - Clubber 10y ago
    Swap out some brand names and that's almost exactly what I'm building right now. Micro services! Let's make everything like that now! I miss WinForms.
huxley 10y ago
Given that Apple pulled it off twice with the Mac 68K emulator (for the Motorola 680x0 to PowerPC transition) and on OS X with Rosetta (for the PowerPC to x86 transition), it's certainly possible and ARM processors have come a long way.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Note that in both cases the new processor was faster than the old one. Not so much for x86 on ARM.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    Back then, "faster" really meant faster. These days, there's far less of a gap between processor generations for a consumer use-case. Running Firefox on Windows 10 to check Gmail and Facebook and occasional Word usage probably wouldn't feel much slower if you're on an Apple A10 processor vs a Skylake core i5. We long ago reached the point where an iPad processor was fast enough for consumer usage, and I knew plenty of college students who were happy with their Surface (non-pro, ARM-based). For you and I, we want the fastest machines possible, and right now it's x86. For everyone else, I doubt they've even given it a thought, and I don't think they'd notice.
    - gsnedders 10y ago
      And there's plenty of people whose primary devices are phones and tablets nowadays.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  It could be difficult for Microsoft, but since Apple have their own line of ARM processors, could Apple theoretically add a couple strategic instructions to their CPUs to help speed up the emulation?

Havoc 10y ago

>standard corporate desktop applications would probably perform pretty well. Don't say such evil things. Spend half my days being frustrated by corporate software. .net software that runs on a modern i7 ultrabook with SSD. Doesn't do anything wild (mostly buttons & menus)...yet its bloody slow. HOW???

youdounderstand 10y ago
Undoubtedly due to blocking the UI thread on I/O.
- darrylb42 10y ago
  and the slow database backend
- i336_ 10y ago
  Or an overabundance of I/O. A friend showed me the industry-standard database app used to manage most Internet-connected second-hand bookshops (I think). Its development decisions went something like: "Hey, let's be sooooo awesome and update the search results live, as you type! Wow, without even a one-second delay this is SO REALTIME - like we're in 2187" (later) "Do we need to index the database? ...eh, nah. I don't think our custom database solution even supports indexing. Kay." In my friend's case the store he's at has tens of thousands of books. Cue perpetual SSD replacements by all the shops using this software My approach to using it (when my friend and I were discussing it while I visited) was to hit Win+R to obtain a text box, type my search string, then ^C/ESC/^V it over. The database app would lock up for about 1.2 seconds per keypress.
  - nine_k 10y ago
    Acceptance testing? Load testing? No, never heard of those :-/
- wfunction 10y ago
  The problem is there shouldn't be much so I/O for loading programs in the first place, but .NET loves loading an exabyte from the disk whenever any program runs.
Maarten88 10y ago
> yet its bloody slow. HOW??? The button calls into a recently developed micro-service, that calls into a previous-generation SOAP webservice, that sends a message to the enterprise service bus, that then goes to netweaver middleware, that calls into the SAP R/3 backend that has been there since 1992 but was recently upgraded to use an even more expensive database. Of course, the button has to wait for the response of all this, and blocks the UI while waiting...
- Clubber 10y ago
  Swap out some brand names and that's almost exactly what I'm building right now. Micro services! Let's make everything like that now! I miss WinForms.

huxley 10y ago

Given that Apple pulled it off twice with the Mac 68K emulator (for the Motorola 680x0 to PowerPC transition) and on OS X with Rosetta (for the PowerPC to x86 transition), it's certainly possible and ARM processors have come a long way.

greglindahl 10y ago
Note that in both cases the new processor was faster than the old one. Not so much for x86 on ARM.
- freehunter 10y ago
  Back then, "faster" really meant faster. These days, there's far less of a gap between processor generations for a consumer use-case. Running Firefox on Windows 10 to check Gmail and Facebook and occasional Word usage probably wouldn't feel much slower if you're on an Apple A10 processor vs a Skylake core i5. We long ago reached the point where an iPad processor was fast enough for consumer usage, and I knew plenty of college students who were happy with their Surface (non-pro, ARM-based). For you and I, we want the fastest machines possible, and right now it's x86. For everyone else, I doubt they've even given it a thought, and I don't think they'd notice.
  - gsnedders 10y ago
    And there's plenty of people whose primary devices are phones and tablets nowadays.
kalleboo 10y ago
It could be difficult for Microsoft, but since Apple have their own line of ARM processors, could Apple theoretically add a couple strategic instructions to their CPUs to help speed up the emulation?