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> In the past MSFT was always wedded to x86 ?? WindowsNT shipped on x86, Alpha, and MIPS. Then got ported to X64, PowerPC and Itanium. For the NT line, histo
by jayb_oz 2y ago
> In the past MSFT was always wedded to x86
??
WindowsNT shipped on x86, Alpha, and MIPS. Then got ported to X64, PowerPC and Itanium.
For the NT line, historically Microsoft was very supportive of other ISAs. The market wasn't.
(I worked on applications supporting a number of those. x86/x64 won the price/performance war).
- shrubble 2y agoNo one bought it on those alternative ISAs, however. The Alphas and MIPS vendors had a port but what percentage of those systems ended up running a Unix? This time it is different since DOS and 16bit Windows is out of the picture. This time you have multiple vendors/OEMs actually shipping e.g. Snapdragon-based Windows systems. Lenovo might make money selling such laptops, but over time MSFT will be the largest beneficiary of the "CPU wars".
- The_Colonel 2y agoThere was already Windows on ARM in not so distant past, but it failed. I'm not convinced this time it will be different.
- Marsymars 2y agoThere was Windows RT, which failed, but the current Windows on ARM platform has been a thing since 2017. The first few Win10 on ARM devices aren't upgradeable to Windows 11, but anything since the Snapdragon 850 in 2018 is fully supported by Windows 11: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-11-supported-qualcomm-processors https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/mi... I guess it could still fail, but to me it seems a bit weird to be predicting the failure of a 7 year-old platform just when it's starting to see a real uptick in momentum.
- steve1977 2y agoThe very name NT initially was a testament to that, as it originally referred to the Intel i860 (codename N10).