3 ms·

Why is X86 disgusting?

• mhh__ 5y ago
  Ugly ugly ugly ISA. We throw away a little bit of performance and a lot of power because of how weird and old it is.
• infamouscow 5y ago
  It's a matter of taste, but x86 has a lot of historical cruft because it's been around long enough to see 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit industry transitions. Off the top of my head, x86 memory segmentation and fragmentation between BIOS vs. UEFI and ACPI vs. the absence of device trees (AFAIK).
  • mrlonglong 5y ago
    But it is kinda cool to run software that originally was built for the 8088 on an AMD Threadripper. But yes, I do agree the x86 architecture is fast losing its lustre.