3 ms·

So, in the near future, we will have more companies that are able to make fast-enough CPUs for consumption other than Intel and AMD. I think this is a good thi

So, in the near future, we will have more companies that are able to make fast-enough CPUs for consumption other than Intel and AMD. I think this is a good thing. Traditionally, the technology of CPU seems so complex that few can handle that. But now Apple, Google and some other manufactures will compete in this field. This will lower the cost of massive computing.

digi_owl 9y ago
Frankly it has been the case for years already. We keep coming up with ever more exotic reasons for not retiring the x86 hegemony for home computing, but the core one that we are loath to acknowledge is legacy software. WinTel sticks around because anything else means a wholesale replacement of every program ever bought. Even Intel failed against that beast when they tried to push Itanium, and it was not even a desktop product. Similarly FOSS have a hard time getting a foothold because devs keep breaking backwards compatibility on a whim (and no, Flatpak et al is not a solution. It is lipstick on a pig).
jug 9y ago
You mean like ARM? Microsoft builds Windows for ARM these days, full fledged Windows this time unlike Windows RT. Photoshop has been demo'ed on a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU running Windows 10 and devices are expected to be released later this year. And maybe the end game for Apple's A series of CPU's is to get them at least into Macbook and Macbook Air if not Macbook Pro, to begin with. They'd get a whole other kind of control over that supply chain and not having to stall releases based on Intel schedules. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a version of macOS already compiling.
- du_bing 9y ago
  The macOS compiling on ARM you mentioned is very interesting. I guess probably Apple or other big manufactures may be already able to make CPU of X86_64 or other architectures.

3 ms·

So, in the near future, we will have more companies that are able to make fast-enough CPUs for consumption other than Intel and AMD. I think this is a good thi

by du_bing 9y ago

digi_owl 9y ago
Frankly it has been the case for years already. We keep coming up with ever more exotic reasons for not retiring the x86 hegemony for home computing, but the core one that we are loath to acknowledge is legacy software. WinTel sticks around because anything else means a wholesale replacement of every program ever bought. Even Intel failed against that beast when they tried to push Itanium, and it was not even a desktop product. Similarly FOSS have a hard time getting a foothold because devs keep breaking backwards compatibility on a whim (and no, Flatpak et al is not a solution. It is lipstick on a pig).
jug 9y ago
You mean like ARM? Microsoft builds Windows for ARM these days, full fledged Windows this time unlike Windows RT. Photoshop has been demo'ed on a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU running Windows 10 and devices are expected to be released later this year. And maybe the end game for Apple's A series of CPU's is to get them at least into Macbook and Macbook Air if not Macbook Pro, to begin with. They'd get a whole other kind of control over that supply chain and not having to stall releases based on Intel schedules. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a version of macOS already compiling.
- du_bing 9y ago
  The macOS compiling on ARM you mentioned is very interesting. I guess probably Apple or other big manufactures may be already able to make CPU of X86_64 or other architectures.