"Never" was too strong a word but I stand by the market being small. I know modern x86 CPUs are used in embedded and I even have a robot arm that uses a 486 wit

"Never" was too strong a word but I stand by the market being small. I know modern x86 CPUs are used in embedded and I even have a robot arm that uses a 486 with bare metal software for motor control. My comment is a reply to the parent but also to the article which I could have clarified. In retrospect I am probably replying to the wrong comment to give my opinion. I think a few CPU part numbers per generation guaranteed to be available for decades is a good idea (and I think it's true already). I also think custom SOCs is a good idea. I just don't think there is feasibility for both custom and long life in the same part. Then, to reply to you, are you using x86 CPUs in a part of a system that will actually last 50 years? I used to work in automation and perhaps I have a bias based on what I saw in my projects. I was generally paid to automate old machines (oldest was about 60 years old) or upgrade the automation of machines. Sometimes we would keep ancient PLCs running for decades, and sometimes replace them (with a newer PLC that can certainly run for decades). For worn-out mechanical parts we would usually find an old drawing, or reverse engineer an old part and make a new identical one. But for HMIs, dataloggers and webservers, everyone seemed to be trending towards using industrial products built around x86. These would always be secondary systems and interface to the PLC, but not actually be critical components (well, maybe 1 out of several HMIs is required). But, these tended to be replaced every 5-15 years if they stopped working or a new feature was required, and not maintained with spare parts. It doesn't seem that the manufacturers of these things keep them available for a long time either. Out of interest, I just looked up the current product line of Beijers HMI panels (I used to mainly use them in my projects), and they seem to be built around Atom, Celeron and iMX6 (great CPU btw) CPUs. Having seen inside the older products, I doubt these have standardized sockets to drop in a new CPU 30 years from now. In fact, the models I used to buy 15 years ago are no longer available and the only option is to buy a newer model and translate the old UI screens to the UI model (either manually or automatically). They do still work with ancient PLCs though. My thesis is for these, or one of the x86-based "soft PLCs", or in general, for the most part it makes sense to use available commodity parts and keep the product line inexpensive and compatible at the software level rather than select a CPU with 50 year availability. And especially not ask for a custom SoC and then pay for 50 year availability. And not use an off the shelf OS and libraries and hope they work for 50 years. Much better to standardize some interfaces and maintain only those for 50 years. As a final comment, there are absolutely cases with huge qualification costs or human safety requirements where it makes sense to pay big money to keep using old, proven parts even if they are obsolete, like aerospace or nuclear.