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It's always weird to see Intel using "foreign" ISAs, but not too surprising for something they acquired. The ME's use of SPARC and ARC before that is more unusu

It's always weird to see Intel using "foreign" ISAs, but not too surprising for something they acquired. The ME's use of SPARC and ARC before that is more unusual; they could've at least used a 386/486-class core, or even the i860/960 if they wanted something RISC.

int0x29 3y ago
Pretty sure ME is Intel Quark based now. Quark is intel's weird 32 bit x86 as a microcontroller chip.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  A 32-bit Linux-capable microcontroller at that. I still keep my Galileo board. Will probably assemble it into a picture frame and run a heterogeneous cluster with it and some of the other boards I accumulated over the years. This is Gibson, the 4 RPi Zero W's running Docker Swarm: https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/1729863007755444620 https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/172986300775544462...
  - voxadam 3y ago
    > This is Gibson, the 4 RPi Zero W's running Docker Swarm: https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/1729863007755444620 https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/172986300775544462... You did it, you hacked the Gibson! Please tell me it has a slick 90s neon low poly 3D interface.
    - rbanffy 3y ago
      No. It's just an unassuming IKEA picture frame, but I can ssh into them.
  - uuddlrlrbaba 3y ago
    Row row row your boat
- userbinator 3y ago
  Quark is basically a 486, with some Pentium instructions added.
rbanffy 3y ago
It must be a bit depressing for Intel engineers that they are forced to keep themselves tied to the ever extending x86 ISA and can't explore all the other ISAs they use (or invented). The 860/960 generated a lot of buzz back then and there was some pretty capable hardware using it. Fortunately, with open-source becoming dominant in the data center and the relative ease of bootstrapping a new ISA on top of it, we will see some extra diversity in this space, but I don't think Intel will abandon x86 anytime soon (and "soon" is in almost geological scales here).
- samus 3y ago
  Intel could just as well become a pure fab and give up on designing processors. Switching to another ISA might tie them up for years before they can deliver state-of-the-art processors again. Intel can't afford that after the recent year's delays with switching to new nodes.
- watersb 3y ago
  Intel has been thinking in detail about a streamlined x86 architecture that would ditch all of the cruft: 64-bit only, no memory segmentation, no real mode. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t...

int0x29 3y ago

Pretty sure ME is Intel Quark based now. Quark is intel's weird 32 bit x86 as a microcontroller chip.

rbanffy 3y ago
A 32-bit Linux-capable microcontroller at that. I still keep my Galileo board. Will probably assemble it into a picture frame and run a heterogeneous cluster with it and some of the other boards I accumulated over the years. This is Gibson, the 4 RPi Zero W's running Docker Swarm: https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/1729863007755444620 https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/172986300775544462...
- voxadam 3y ago
  > This is Gibson, the 4 RPi Zero W's running Docker Swarm: https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/1729863007755444620 https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/172986300775544462... You did it, you hacked the Gibson! Please tell me it has a slick 90s neon low poly 3D interface.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    No. It's just an unassuming IKEA picture frame, but I can ssh into them.
- uuddlrlrbaba 3y ago
  Row row row your boat
userbinator 3y ago
Quark is basically a 486, with some Pentium instructions added.

rbanffy 3y ago

It must be a bit depressing for Intel engineers that they are forced to keep themselves tied to the ever extending x86 ISA and can't explore all the other ISAs they use (or invented). The 860/960 generated a lot of buzz back then and there was some pretty capable hardware using it. Fortunately, with open-source becoming dominant in the data center and the relative ease of bootstrapping a new ISA on top of it, we will see some extra diversity in this space, but I don't think Intel will abandon x86 anytime soon (and "soon" is in almost geological scales here).

samus 3y ago
Intel could just as well become a pure fab and give up on designing processors. Switching to another ISA might tie them up for years before they can deliver state-of-the-art processors again. Intel can't afford that after the recent year's delays with switching to new nodes.
watersb 3y ago
Intel has been thinking in detail about a streamlined x86 architecture that would ditch all of the cruft: 64-bit only, no memory segmentation, no real mode. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t...