3 ms·
I wonder how different history might have been if Intel had chose to design something more workable instead of Itanium. We're just now ending the x86-64 transit
by zamadatix 2y ago
I wonder how different history might have been if Intel had chose to design something more workable instead of Itanium. We're just now ending the x86-64 transition (no more 32 bit Windows, most all software x86 software is 64 bit native nowadays) and maybe that would never have happened, we'd have just went to 64 bit other-thing.
Either way there is definitely room for multiple architectures for a long while. Even if one believes ARM or RISC-V or whatever will be the end of x86 it would still take a decade to stop seeing new x86 CPU designs come out just from the momentum.
- toast0 2y agoYeah, in terms of new designs, Itanium got its last new processor in 2017, although wikipedia says it's basically the same as the 2012 design, and that was for an architecture with a poor release in 2001 and effectively dead by 2005. Manufacturing continued until 2020. x86 will probably get at least a similar lifetime beyond the point where it's clearly dead. And then those systems will likely last another ten years. Maybe there will be retro builds for even longer (Intel Quark was more or less an OG pentium, 20 years later)