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I wonder if in 2025 a company would even allowed to start before being curb stomped by Intel's IP lawyers. After all, they started making clones, something that
by izacus 10mo ago
I wonder if in 2025 a company would even allowed to start before being curb stomped by Intel's IP lawyers. After all, they started making clones, something that China gets accused of a lot.
- tiffanyh 10mo agoIf the company was based in the EU, local regulation might encourage reverse-engineering. See tangentially related topic from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46362927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46362927
- userbinator 10mo agoEU or RU.
- jezek2 10mo agoYou can do it with HW accelerated emulation like Apple did with M1 CPUs. They implemented x86 compatible behavior in HW so the emulation has very good performance. Another approach was Transmeta where the target ISA was microcoded, therefore done in "software".
- BlueToth 10mo agoThey said that they implemented x86 ISA memory handling instructions, that substantially sped up the emulation. I don't remember exactly which now, but they explained this all in a WWDC video about the emulation.
- als0 10mo agoNot instructions per se. Rosetta is a software based binary translator, and one of the most intensive parts about translating x86 to ARM is having to make sure all load/store instructions are strictly well ordered. To alleviate this pressure, Apple implemented the Total Store Ordering (TSO) feature in hardware, which makes sure that all ARM load and store instructions (transparently) follow the same memory ordering rules as x86.
- nineteen999 10mo agoIt is funny to hear sometimes though: "Apple created a chip which is not an X86! Its awesome! And the best thing about it is ... it does TSO does like an X86! Isn't that great?"
- dontlaugh 10mo agoOnly some of the time. I think the last time I ran amd64 on my mac was months ago, a game.
- fweimer 10mo agoThere's a Linux patch that exposes it via prctl: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20240410211652.16640-1-zayd_qumsieh@apple.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/all/20240410211652.16640-1-zayd_qums... There's also the CFINV instruction (architectural, part of FEAT_FLAGM), which helps with emulating the x86-64 CMP instruction.
- izacus 10mo agoApple didn't implement x86 ISA in hardware, they have a few instructions that change memory behaviour to make emulation faster.
- phendrenad2 10mo agoMaybe if you find a company as small as Intel was at the time.
- BlueToth 10mo agoIntel customers required a second source supplier, i.e. IBM, thus, AMD was providing that for Intel in the beginning. Then later on AMD created the x86 64bit commands, which Intel adopted from AMD so now both share the same ISA.
- izacus 10mo agoCan you explain what you tried so say with that? Customer needs don't really matter in cases where monopolist (ab)uses the law to kill competition. That's the MAIN reason why monopolies are problematic.
- debugnik 10mo agoThe "required" in that sentence should be read strictly: some customers, mainly governmental, wouldn't have bought Intel chips in the first place without access to alternative suppliers (AMD and previously VIA). Intel had to give in.
- sokoloff 10mo agoI read GP to mean that Intel had strong incentive to cooperate in order to make the initial sale. That’s where the customer need was relevant.
- zenethian 10mo agoNeither company were like they are now back then. Intel needed a second supplier for their chips because nobody trusted manufacturing from a single source provider.
- nineteen999 10mo agoThat wasn't the case. Their customers were the military. The second sourcing was required if they wanted DoD contracts.
- nwallin 10mo agoThis article is not about that. This article is about the AMD Am9080, which was a unlicensed clone of the Intel 8080. The licensing deals that legitimized AMD's unlicensed clones came later.