> Intel was making enough coin from x86 that they were reluctant to EOL it in favour of something RISC. Not that they didn't try. Multiple times (Itanium being

> Intel was making enough coin from x86 that they were reluctant to EOL it in favour of something RISC. Not that they didn't try. Multiple times (Itanium being the worst, though much later). It seems as if VLIW with a sufficiently smart compiler to handle the instruction packing was the "fetch" Intel kept trying to make happen, but it wasn't going to happen (people kept stumbling on the "sufficiently smart compiler" bit). First with the iAPX 432, then the i860, then Itanium.