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As stated with the 68000 - I often wondered where the industry would be if the 68000 was picked instead of the x86 architecture by IBM. The 68000 had a far bet
by vparikh 9y ago
As stated with the 68000 - I often wondered where the industry would be if the 68000 was picked instead of the x86 architecture by IBM. The 68000 had a far better design and the ISA had real legs. Instead we got stuck with the monstrosity that is the x86 architecture. Probably put us back a decade or so I think.
- gpvos 9y agoWhile I can't answer that, here is a recent submission that goes into why the 68000 wasn't chosen (tldr: they were just too late for the rigorous and therefore time-consuming quality assurance program that IBM had imposed on the IBM PC): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14619360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14619360
- fulafel 9y agoThe 68000 did well and was popular (in Macs, Amigas, NeXT / Sun boxes, etc) as long as ISA mattered. When it faded away, x86 was C-based and 32-bit which mitigated its weaknesses. Yes, MS software was terrible, but this had little to do with x86 after the 32 bit transition.
- yuhong 9y agoThe OS/2 2.0 fiasco is so bad it is one of my favorite topics.