4 ms·
Not obscure, but an unlikely originator of a globally-significant processor architecture.
by mannykannot 6y ago
Not obscure, but an unlikely originator of a globally-significant processor architecture.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoWhy unlikely? The UK has always had a significant presence in CS, both theoretically and in practical engineering.
- mannykannot 6y agoI am not saying that the UK was an unlikely place for this to happen, but that it was unlikely that this particular company would do it.
- forinti 6y agoMost 8 bit micros were designed to be just as cheap as possible. The Beeb was a really well designed machine (both the hardware and the software). You could only expect the next step to be a great machine.
- mannykannot 6y agoEven so, going from designing computers using off-the-shelf components to creating your own processor design with an innovative architecture was a bold and risky bet. Not many computer manufacturers took this route.
- rbanffy 6y agoIt mostly killed Acorn. Olivetti acquired them.
- vidarh 6y agoBecause there were multiple relative giants in the 80's and 90's that had their own processor designs. The competition was broad, and much of it from far more well funded companies. For all of them to falter and ARM to succeed was a real long-shot. Even well into the 90's, when several companies were looking at switching CPU architectures or supporting alternative architectures, ARM was just not on the radar for most developments, because people were looking to compete with x86 on performance. People talked about the Alpha, MIPS, PPC, PA-RISC, not ARM. When ARM started appearing on the radar as more than a low end embedded option towards the end of the 90's, it was DEC's StrongARM family. It was a very long way coming. Which makes it all the more impressive that they made it.
- factsonly 6y agoThe main benefit of the ARM processor design was very high performance per watt which carved out a significant niche that then grew into a massive market
- rbanffy 6y agoIn the beginning, it had great power characteristics, but it was also much faster than any x86. That it evolved in the direction of power efficiency is more an effect of it being power efficient and being popular with embedded manufacturers, which created a feedback look that guided it to extreme power efficiency with reasonable performance, while x86 went the route of performance, power be damned.
- mhh__ 6y agoIsn't that mostly because all the RISC's either killed themselves or got killed, rather than ARM outcompeting as per se? With the Alpha especially, it was a good architecture but (before my time, so I may be wrong) DEC seemed to have no idea how to actually sell it sustainably. Those companies probably would've been shocked at the idea of today's world where your average consumer can buy 20 billion transistor chip just to play games on and everyone owns about 10 other smaller processors (as opposed to a computer being a thing you either bought for your family, or a massive workstation that costs as much as a car)
- vidarh 6y agoSort of, but the point is that ARM avoided that, while half a dozen companies with financial muscle allowing them to try and fail far more ended up failing outright or relegating themselves to niches. ARM could have just as easily ended up making similar mistakes and died. That they didn't is pretty remarkable.
- rbanffy 6y agoThe RISCs that survived are the ones that went where no x86 could go.
- lsllc 6y agoDon't forget ICL and the 2900 Series mainframes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Computers_Limited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Computers_Limite...