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As far as I understand, they don't emulate the x86 instruction set, but instead cross-compile it to ARM native instructions. That means that whatever implementa
by Joeri 9y ago
As far as I understand, they don't emulate the x86 instruction set, but instead cross-compile it to ARM native instructions. That means that whatever implementation details are behind the patented x86 instructions are irrelevant, since there is no emulation of those instructions, they are just replaced by equivalent ARM instructions. Intel will probably still sue, but I expect them to settle out of court.
http://www.techradar.com/news/a-closer-look-at-windows-10-s-windows-10-on-arm-and-windows-10-iot http://www.techradar.com/news/a-closer-look-at-windows-10-s-...
- cm2187 9y agoBut can they patent the instruction set rather than their implementation? Feels like a repeat of the google java lawsuit. In fact weren’t the IBM compatible PCs in the 80s doing exactly that?
- rossy 9y agoIsn't that equivalent to emulating it? Like emulators for video game systems that have both an interpreter and a JIT recompiler, the latter is just an optimization of the former. They both must interpret the instruction set of the target and run equivalent instructions on the host.
- beagle3 9y agoPatents have a funny feature, in that they (are supposed to) apply to a specific implementation. So "equivalent effect" is not enough for patent violation in the general case.
- mr_toad 9y ago"The real-time ‘Just-In-Time’ transcoding emulation that converts x86 instructions to ARM is done the first time you run the software, and then it’s cached by Windows" Still sounds like emulation to me. It's a pretty fine line.