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Data center computing being dominated by commodity Linux running on commodity x86 PC architecture—for which the best CPUs were not commodities, but rather made

Data center computing being dominated by commodity Linux running on commodity x86 PC architecture—for which the best CPUs were not commodities, but rather made exclusively by Intel—was likely the best of all possible worlds for them! Going back to at least the i432, Intel seems to have had a deep vein of “mainframe envy” in their culture and strategic thinking. It seems that somehow the market (and a bit of trailblazing into x86-64 by AMD) saved them from themselves.

watersb 3y ago
> Going back to at least the i432, ... “mainframe envy” Direct quote from Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432 """ Intel's iAPX432 was intended to be Intel's major design for the 1980s. Unlike the 8086, which was designed the following year as a successor to the 8080, the iAPX 432 was a radical departure from Intel's previous designs meant for a different market niche... Referred to as a "micromainframe", the iAPX 432 was designed to be programmed entirely in high-level languages. """ Folklore describes the 8086 as a stop-gap design, an extension of the popular (but tiny) 8080 CPU. The "real" design project at Intel was the i432, which supported object-oriented programming and was THE FUTURE OF ALL COMPUTING. A cut-down version of the object oriented support was carried over into the x86 architecture, in its segmented memory model and page-description registers. You're welcome.
bombcar 3y ago
It was great for Intel - but it wasn't great for certain big manufacturers (dinosaurs) that they were courting. I think they knew they could fall back on x86 if everything went wrong - but what they did NOT expect was x86-64 to just smash everything. That caught them on backfoot.
- p_l 3y ago
  I remember the public roadmaps in tech magazines at the time, and Intel planned on keeping "consumer" market 32bit for longer time - then AMD dropped the Hammer ;>

watersb 3y ago

> Going back to at least the i432, ... “mainframe envy” Direct quote from Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432 """ Intel's iAPX432 was intended to be Intel's major design for the 1980s. Unlike the 8086, which was designed the following year as a successor to the 8080, the iAPX 432 was a radical departure from Intel's previous designs meant for a different market niche... Referred to as a "micromainframe", the iAPX 432 was designed to be programmed entirely in high-level languages. """ Folklore describes the 8086 as a stop-gap design, an extension of the popular (but tiny) 8080 CPU. The "real" design project at Intel was the i432, which supported object-oriented programming and was THE FUTURE OF ALL COMPUTING. A cut-down version of the object oriented support was carried over into the x86 architecture, in its segmented memory model and page-description registers. You're welcome.

bombcar 3y ago

It was great for Intel - but it wasn't great for certain big manufacturers (dinosaurs) that they were courting. I think they knew they could fall back on x86 if everything went wrong - but what they did NOT expect was x86-64 to just smash everything. That caught them on backfoot.

p_l 3y ago
I remember the public roadmaps in tech magazines at the time, and Intel planned on keeping "consumer" market 32bit for longer time - then AMD dropped the Hammer ;>