>Intel has put out a legal fix statement last time around. Similar announcement this time? AMD64 was announced in 1999 and the spec was out in 2000, with the f

>Intel has put out a legal fix statement last time around. Similar announcement this time? AMD64 was announced in 1999 and the spec was out in 2000, with the first implementations in 2003ish IIRC, and Intel releasing its implementations starting 2006 somewhere. While there have been more extensions and new features since then, most of the really key ones from the basic perspective of requirements to run software were early. Which means we're at or rapidly approaching the big deal day when all possible patents expire on all core parts of the ISA. It'll definitely be very interesting to see what happens at that point. As well as Microsoft, it may be something Apple has been waiting for as well. Moving to their own chips for Macs would be a lot easier if they can just flat out implement x86-64 (or at least enough of it) however they want for a transition period or even permanently.