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There is still a point that proprietary binaries are probably the biggest force keeping decades of cruft in processors. (Not judging here)
by jstimpfle 9y ago
There is still a point that proprietary binaries are probably the biggest force keeping decades of cruft in processors. (Not judging here)
- etatoby 9y agoPrecisely. I would go as far as saying proprietary binaries for Microsoft systems are the single force making Intel processors keep decades of cruft, considering the immense cost that Intel must bear to keep those old instructions (barely) running on modern processors.
- striking 9y agoThose "decades of cruft" are usually emulated in microcode and not actual silicon. Intel knows very few people use the BCD instructions, but it costs them almost nothing to keep them in while running them slightly slower than most operations. Why mess up a stable API when you don't have to?