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> "It's the x86 that's anomalous. I believe that is the result of Microsoft's peculiar inability to switch architectures." Why do people keep forgetting that I
by ThrowawayR2 3y ago
> "It's the x86 that's anomalous. I believe that is the result of Microsoft's peculiar inability to switch architectures."
Why do people keep forgetting that Intel was at the forefront of fab process improvements for 2-3 decades, thanks to the enormous revenue and economy of scale of manufacturing coming from the computerization of society from the '90s onward? None of the UNIX server / workstation OEMs with their own CPU architectures could keep up, not even the well heeled Sun Microsystems. AMD couldn't keep up and had to spin off GlobalFoundries. ARM / MIPS and other minor architectures eked out meager existences as embedded processors only because Intel didn't deign to pursue a low margin market. It was a combination of Intel's fab prowess and the lack of motivation from software developers to build Windows software for non-x86 platforms that kept x86 chugging along.