I can't believe I'm defending x86 but I think you're being too harsh. Orthogonality isn't really that important these days now that everybody uses compilers an

I can't believe I'm defending x86 but I think you're being too harsh. Orthogonality isn't really that important these days now that everybody uses compilers and the very messiness of x86 has allowed Intel to keep adding new instructions over time. Linus waxes poetic on 'rep movs' but I'd rather have something like PAL code for architecture specific optimized routines for implementing copies. Still, that's something most ISAs don't have.