5 ms·

It's much better with computers, though. I am able to decently run modern games on 2015 gaming PC. My 2015 flagman phone from meizu seems to have the same proc

by whatch 6y ago

It's much better with computers, though. I am able to decently run modern games on 2015 gaming PC. My 2015 flagman phone from meizu seems to have the same processing power as potato. And I don't even play games on it.

eru 6y ago
> It's much better with computers, though. I am able to decently run modern games on 2015 gaming PC. Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates were and are obsessed with backwards compatibility, and _not_ breaking user programmes. I am not sure how much the Great Man Theory applies here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory) or whether personal computers would have a culture of backwards compatibility without those two? Intel also seems to care about backwards compatibility. (Though they needed a nudge from AMD when transitioning to 64 bit.) In contrast, Apple and ARM seem more eager to start from a clean slate. So I can perfectly imagine a personal computer industry in an alternate universe that's happy to force people to recompile their programmes every few years; and otherwise to just abandon old binary-only software.
- roenxi 6y ago
  The winners in the competitive struggle are going to be people who don't break things. People who routinely reset their ecosystem tend to lose then get forgotten. It isn't so much their influence as much as there is a community that is constantly searching for reliable platforms to build on.
  - eru 6y ago
    > People who routinely reset their ecosystem tend to lose then get forgotten. ARM seems to be doing well and they release binary incompatible chips every so often. And resetting had long been the norm in the world of games consoles. So I wouldn't take what we observed in the personal computer industry as a universal truth. It's probably rather contingent.
    - panpanna 6y ago
      When did ARM ever release a binary incompatible CPU? For the application space they have the old armv7 and the new armv8. The latter can actually run armv7 in aarch32 mode.
      - kps 6y ago
        Cortex-M only runs Thumb instructions, not the original instruction set.
        panpanna 6y ago
        But Cortex-M is not an application CPU, it was specifically designed for embedded systems (hence the M in the name). If I recall correctly, it runs a subset/superset of thumbs2 which standard armv7-8 also can execute.
  - EricE 6y ago
    "The winners in the competitive struggle are going to be people who don't break things." Search for developer comments about their experiences with Rosetta 2. Maybe Apple isn't so dumb after all, eh? What makes the comments on speed even more impressive to me - note that the developer test machines are using a two year old CPU. Originally designed for a battery operated mobile device.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      A12Z has hardware support for accelerating Rosetta 2 that is unused on iOS, so its use as the core of a developer transition kit was clearly decided well in advance.

by whatch 6y ago

eru 6y ago

> It's much better with computers, though. I am able to decently run modern games on 2015 gaming PC. Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates were and are obsessed with backwards compatibility, and _not_ breaking user programmes. I am not sure how much the Great Man Theory applies here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory) or whether personal computers would have a culture of backwards compatibility without those two? Intel also seems to care about backwards compatibility. (Though they needed a nudge from AMD when transitioning to 64 bit.) In contrast, Apple and ARM seem more eager to start from a clean slate. So I can perfectly imagine a personal computer industry in an alternate universe that's happy to force people to recompile their programmes every few years; and otherwise to just abandon old binary-only software.

roenxi 6y ago
The winners in the competitive struggle are going to be people who don't break things. People who routinely reset their ecosystem tend to lose then get forgotten. It isn't so much their influence as much as there is a community that is constantly searching for reliable platforms to build on.
- eru 6y ago
  > People who routinely reset their ecosystem tend to lose then get forgotten. ARM seems to be doing well and they release binary incompatible chips every so often. And resetting had long been the norm in the world of games consoles. So I wouldn't take what we observed in the personal computer industry as a universal truth. It's probably rather contingent.
  - panpanna 6y ago
    When did ARM ever release a binary incompatible CPU? For the application space they have the old armv7 and the new armv8. The latter can actually run armv7 in aarch32 mode.
    - kps 6y ago
      Cortex-M only runs Thumb instructions, not the original instruction set.
      - panpanna 6y ago
        But Cortex-M is not an application CPU, it was specifically designed for embedded systems (hence the M in the name). If I recall correctly, it runs a subset/superset of thumbs2 which standard armv7-8 also can execute.
- EricE 6y ago
  "The winners in the competitive struggle are going to be people who don't break things." Search for developer comments about their experiences with Rosetta 2. Maybe Apple isn't so dumb after all, eh? What makes the comments on speed even more impressive to me - note that the developer test machines are using a two year old CPU. Originally designed for a battery operated mobile device.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    A12Z has hardware support for accelerating Rosetta 2 that is unused on iOS, so its use as the core of a developer transition kit was clearly decided well in advance.