Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Sven Hartge]

Christian Groessler  wrote:
> On 3/15/21 10:47 PM, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
>> On Lu, 15 mar 21, 20:24:56, Sven Hartge wrote:

>>> (I still vividly remember using memmaker and manual ordering the drivers
>>> in config.sys and autoexec.bat to shave another 2KB from the lower
>>> memory so the IPX driver would fit so Doom would run.)

>> For me it was Warcraft :)

>> And for some game (possibly also Warcraft) I had to pretend having a
>> sound card by listing the driver in config.sys, otherwise it wouldn't
>> even start.

> For me it was "Worms".

> And I was using QEMM and Quarterdeck Manifest to get maximal memory in 
> the lower 640k.

Ooooh, look at Mr Fancy here, cheating with 3rd party products to get
ahead :)

I'll throw in the special "maximise XMS memory boot disk" I had for
Comanche because that game just *hated* emm386.exe but without EMM,
stuff like "LOADHIGH" to push drivers into the UMB was not available and
I was too lazy to add another branch to my already convoluted config.sys
boot menu.

S°

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Christian Groessler]

On 3/15/21 10:47 PM, Andrei POPESCU wrote:

On Lu, 15 mar 21, 20:24:56, Sven Hartge wrote:

(I still vividly remember using memmaker and manual ordering the drivers
in config.sys and autoexec.bat to shave another 2KB from the lower
memory so the IPX driver would fit so Doom would run.)

For me it was Warcraft :)

And for some game (possibly also Warcraft) I had to pretend having a
sound card by listing the driver in config.sys, otherwise it wouldn't
even start.



For me it was "Worms".

And I was using QEMM and Quarterdeck Manifest to get maximal memory in 
the lower 640k.


regards,
chris

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Lu, 15 mar 21, 20:24:56, Sven Hartge wrote:
> 
> (I still vividly remember using memmaker and manual ordering the drivers
> in config.sys and autoexec.bat to shave another 2KB from the lower
> memory so the IPX driver would fit so Doom would run.)

For me it was Warcraft :)

And for some game (possibly also Warcraft) I had to pretend having a 
sound card by listing the driver in config.sys, otherwise it wouldn't 
even start.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Sven Hartge]

Joe  wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Mar 2021 12:34:42 +0100 Sven Hartge  wrote:

>> Imagine a PC with 4GB adressable memory space in 1980.

> I can. It would have cost as much as a mainframe to make full use of it.

I don't say to put it in, only to have a flat 32bit address range.

Just like the current 64bit systems don't have 16 Exabyte of memory in
them.

(I still vividly remember using memmaker and manual ordering the drivers
in config.sys and autoexec.bat to shave another 2KB from the lower
memory so the IPX driver would fit so Doom would run.)

S°

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Stefan Monnier]

>> No it wouldn't, and we had it by the late '80's with the advent of
>> 68040 abd 68060 accellerator boards for the Amiga's. But that flat
>> memory model and poor production QC doomed it.  Any program could make
>> a missfire and write into another programs memory space, crashing the
>> whole Mary Ann.
> Starting in '82 the 68010 added virtual memory and virtualization suport.

[ I can't remember any discussion of virtualization for that.
  Back then this only existed on things like IBM mainframes and noone in
  the workstation-and-lower markets cared about it, AFAIK.  ]

Note that this is only true in the sense of "wifi ready" (a laptop that
came without any wifi card but maybe with an antenna in the bezel): the
68010 was a very minor improvement of the 68000 which just fixed some
blunders that were making it (almost) impossible to provide support for
virtual memory.  You needed additional help (like an MMU) in order to
get virtual memory on the 68010 and that usually ended up very costly in
terms of performance.

Virtual memory only became vaguely usable with the 68020 (and then
actually usable on the 68030).


Stefan

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 15 March 2021 12:40:51 John Hasler wrote:

> Gene writes:
> > No it wouldn't, and we had it by the late '80's with the advent of
> > 68040 abd 68060 accellerator boards for the Amiga's. But that flat
> > memory model and poor production QC doomed it.  Any program could
> > make a missfire and write into another programs memory space,
> > crashing the whole Mary Ann.
>
> Starting in '82 the 68010 added virtual memory and virtualization
> suport.

But by then the amiga design was frozen until the funeral.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[John Hasler]

Gene writes:
> No it wouldn't, and we had it by the late '80's with the advent of
> 68040 abd 68060 accellerator boards for the Amiga's. But that flat
> memory model and poor production QC doomed it.  Any program could make
> a missfire and write into another programs memory space, crashing the
> whole Mary Ann.

Starting in '82 the 68010 added virtual memory and virtualization suport.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Michael Stone]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 12:53:46PM +, Joe wrote:

On Mon, 15 Mar 2021 12:34:42 +0100 Sven Hartge  wrote:

Imagine a PC with 4GB adressable memory space in 1980.


I can. It would have cost as much as a mainframe to make full use of it.


More. Memory was often the largest line item back then, and ordinary 
mainframes couldn't afford much of it. The Cray 2 was a game-changer in 
the supercomputer space with its 1Gbyte memory capacity. Mostly those 
were bought by three letter agencies, but some really large corporations 
and universities with very generous donors got one.

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[tomas]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 10:45:15AM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> >> Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC in
> >> 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also availble M68k
> >> CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it would not be in
> >> competition with the mainframes the PC was supposed to interface with
> >> primarily.
> > Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.
> 
> I'm sure there have been several different factors and it's hard to know
> which were more important (often the more personal and less technical
> factors are the more important ones in those areas, but the hardest to
> track down and verify).

ISTR that the Big Iron and the small stuff factions whithin IBM were
in fierce competition at the time. That's why the idea seemed plausible
to me.

[...]  Another important factor (linked to pragmatic
> constraints of overall production cost and availability of all the
> various components at particular dates) made it important to use an 8bit
> interface between the CPU and the system (which arguably also ensured it
> was no threat performancewise to the rest of IBM's linup).
> That's another reason why they went with the 8088 rather than the 8086,
> and also another reason why they went with Intel rather than Motorola,
> since the 68008 wasn't available yet.

...the outcome was surely that of multiple factors. IBM was a complex
beast at the time!

Cheers
 - t


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Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC in
>> 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also availble M68k
>> CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it would not be in
>> competition with the mainframes the PC was supposed to interface with
>> primarily.
> Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.

I'm sure there have been several different factors and it's hard to know
which were more important (often the more personal and less technical
factors are the more important ones in those areas, but the hardest to
track down and verify).  Another important factor (linked to pragmatic
constraints of overall production cost and availability of all the
various components at particular dates) made it important to use an 8bit
interface between the CPU and the system (which arguably also ensured it
was no threat performancewise to the rest of IBM's linup).
That's another reason why they went with the 8088 rather than the 8086,
and also another reason why they went with Intel rather than Motorola,
since the 68008 wasn't available yet.


Stefan

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[John Hasler]

Gene writes:
> That, IIRC was a new, super shiny, thing from zilog. No experience
> with it, but if it was as unreliable as the z-80, was, I'm not sorry
> it failed. The Z-80 had an instruction that swapped the
> foregrund/background register sets.  But it only worked on odd hours
> of the day. And had no way of testing if the command had worked
> without sacrificing 1 of the three registers. in both sets.

I used lots of Z80s and had good luck with them.  I wrote an OS for my
first Z80 homebrew computer that used register swapping to service
interrupts and print in the background.  It worked quite well.  Most
applications used only one register set, though, due to the need for
Intel compatibility.

My first Unix machine was an Onyx with a Z8000 running System III.  The
8 inch disk got flaky after about ten years but other than that it was
quite reliable.  Odd architecture, though.  I would have preferred 68k.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[tomas]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 10:02:12AM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:

[...]

> Snerk. We all did that back in the day, Tomas. that and similar magazines 
> were this 8th grade graduates electronics education. Do they still exist 
> today? Retired now, so the subs expired.

Some of them: https://www.ee.com/

Cheers
 - t


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Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 15 March 2021 09:53:40 to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 09:31:05AM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > On Monday 15 March 2021 07:05:02 to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > > On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 11:09:35AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > > Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM
> > > > PC in 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also
> > > > availble M68k CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it
> > > > would not be in competition with the mainframes the PC was
> > > > supposed to interface with primarily.
> > >
> > > Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.
> > >
> > > > If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC
> > > > ecosystem today would also look quite differently.
> > >
> > > Or the Z8000. Absolutely. 8086 was, architecturally, the worst
> > > possible choice at that time.
> >
> > That, IIRC was a new, super shiny, thing from zilog. No experience
> > with it, but if it was as unreliable as the z-80, was, I'm not sorry
> > it failed. The Z-80 had an instruction that swapped the
>
> [...]
>
> I take that back. Z8000 was a 16 bit data/24 bit address thing; it
> did have a segmented architecture, so it wasn't as "clean" as I
> remembered it. At that time I was just a little student, so my
> "experience" with that stuff was to drool over design articles
> in the usual magazines (EE, AFAIR).
>
> Cheers
>  - t
Snerk. We all did that back in the day, Tomas. that and similar magazines 
were this 8th grade graduates electronics education. Do they still exist 
today? Retired now, so the subs expired.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[tomas]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 09:31:05AM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Monday 15 March 2021 07:05:02 to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 11:09:35AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC
> > > in 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also availble
> > > M68k CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it would not be
> > > in competition with the mainframes the PC was supposed to interface
> > > with primarily.
> >
> > Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.
> >
> > > If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC
> > > ecosystem today would also look quite differently.
> >
> > Or the Z8000. Absolutely. 8086 was, architecturally, the worst
> > possible choice at that time.
> >
> That, IIRC was a new, super shiny, thing from zilog. No experience with 
> it, but if it was as unreliable as the z-80, was, I'm not sorry it 
> failed. The Z-80 had an instruction that swapped the 

[...]

I take that back. Z8000 was a 16 bit data/24 bit address thing; it
did have a segmented architecture, so it wasn't as "clean" as I
remembered it. At that time I was just a little student, so my
"experience" with that stuff was to drool over design articles
in the usual magazines (EE, AFAIR).

Cheers
 - t


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Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 15 March 2021 08:53:46 Joe wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Mar 2021 12:34:42 +0100
>
> Sven Hartge  wrote:
> > to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > > On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 11:09:35AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:
> > >> Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM
> > >> PC in 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also
> > >> availble M68k CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it
> > >> would not be in competition with the mainframes the PC was
> > >> supposed to interface with primarily.
> > >
> > > Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.
> > >
> > >> If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC
> > >> ecosystem today would also look quite differently.
> > >
> > > Or the Z8000. Absolutely. 8086 was, architecturally, the worst
> > > possible choice at that time.
> >
> > Having had a 68k would have been awesome. No stupid memory
> > segmentation, 32bit instructions and internal address size, 24bit
> > external address size.
> >
> > Imagine a PC with 4GB adressable memory space in 1980.
>
> I can. It would have cost as much as a mainframe to make full use of
> it.

No it wouldn't, and we had it by the late '80's with the advent of 68040 
abd 68060 accellerator boards for the Amiga's. But that flat memory  
model and poor production QC doomed it.  Any program could make a 
missfire and write into another programs memory space, crashing the 
whole Mary Ann. Then Commode-door brought out a 68060 board for the 
4000's. Major failure because that $1600, 4 square inches of pcb, had 
every electrolytic capacitor installed in reverse polarity. Too damned 
compact to be easily fixed, but I did two of them anyway.

Yup, I am a card carrying CET. What else could I do?

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 15 March 2021 07:05:02 to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 11:09:35AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC
> > in 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also availble
> > M68k CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it would not be
> > in competition with the mainframes the PC was supposed to interface
> > with primarily.
>
> Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.
>
> > If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC
> > ecosystem today would also look quite differently.
>
> Or the Z8000. Absolutely. 8086 was, architecturally, the worst
> possible choice at that time.
>
That, IIRC was a new, super shiny, thing from zilog. No experience with 
it, but if it was as unreliable as the z-80, was, I'm not sorry it 
failed. The Z-80 had an instruction that swapped the 
foregrund/background register sets.  But it only worked on odd hours of 
the day. And had no way of testing if the command had worked without 
sacrificing 1 of the three registers. in both sets.

When I finally got schmardter and wrote a test loop to check it, called 
zilog, and it was out of their 90 day warranty. They would not replace 
it. I should have called them and got a sample, but I'm honest and told 
them the truth. I never again used a zilog chip in anything.

I was then on a small town AM/FM radio stations budget, developing an 
Automatic Transmitter System for a temperature picky fm transmitter that 
really ought to have been replaced, starting with the brand label on the 
front panel.

This was in 1980, and the late 70's saw many Ma and Pa small town 
broadcasters severely impacted by trying to replace aging tube 
transmitters with early solid state versions before the tech was mature 
enough to be as dependable as the tube models. It took another ten years 
before the semi failure rates went below that of electrolytic 
capacitors.

Now design rule violations by the gear makers are responsible for a good 
share of the failure bugs. But they are a distant part of the list, well 
behind electrolytic caps whose technology has not been seriously 
improved in a hundred years now.  Even Tesla has put money into new 
versions, and come up short or they would be in his cars replaceing the 
lithium and dangerous batteries right now.

> Cheers
>  - t
Take care and stay safe and well, Tomas.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Joe]

On Mon, 15 Mar 2021 12:34:42 +0100
Sven Hartge  wrote:

> to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 11:09:35AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:  
> 
> >> Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC
> >> in 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also
> >> availble M68k CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it
> >> would not be in competition with the mainframes the PC was
> >> supposed to interface with primarily.  
> 
> > Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.  
> 
> >> If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC
> >> ecosystem today would also look quite differently.  
> 
> > Or the Z8000. Absolutely. 8086 was, architecturally, the worst
> > possible choice at that time.  
> 
> Having had a 68k would have been awesome. No stupid memory
> segmentation, 32bit instructions and internal address size, 24bit
> external address size.
> 
> Imagine a PC with 4GB adressable memory space in 1980.
> 
>
I can. It would have cost as much as a mainframe to make full use of it.

-- 
Joe

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[IL Ka]

>
>
> No stupid memory segmentation,
>

IMHO segmentation was a good idea originally.
You could have separate segments for code and data and since 286 it is
possible to protect them (AFAIK segments were also used to separate
user-space and kernel-space)
But with the advent of virtual memory (386), they have become an obsolete
legacy.

Intel is full of such things: hardware context switching, some old MMX
instructions, I/O ports, real mode: nobody needs all of that in 2021, but
it exists and occupies place in "intel development manual"

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[tomas]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 12:34:42PM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:

[...]

> Having had a 68k would have been awesome. No stupid memory segmentation,

So were Z8000, NS32K and many others. The horrible segmentation thing on
the '86 were the tribute to backward compatibility, which is the price
you pay for market dominance :-)

> 32bit instructions and internal address size, 24bit external address size.
> 
> Imagine a PC with 4GB adressable memory space in 1980.

Yup.

Cheers
 - t


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Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Sven Hartge]

to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 11:09:35AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:

>> Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC
>> in 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also availble
>> M68k CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it would not be
>> in competition with the mainframes the PC was supposed to interface
>> with primarily.

> Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.

>> If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC ecosystem
>> today would also look quite differently.

> Or the Z8000. Absolutely. 8086 was, architecturally, the worst possible
> choice at that time.

Having had a 68k would have been awesome. No stupid memory segmentation,
32bit instructions and internal address size, 24bit external address size.

Imagine a PC with 4GB adressable memory space in 1980.

S°

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[tomas]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 11:09:35AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:

[...]

> Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC in
> 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also availble M68k
> CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it would not be in
> competition with the mainframes the PC was supposed to interface with
> primarily.

Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.

> If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC ecosystem
> today would also look quite differently.

Or the Z8000. Absolutely. 8086 was, architecturally, the worst possible
choice at that time.

Cheers
 - t


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Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Sven Hartge]

to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 09:15:10AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:

>> For the others: they where either on board from the start (like HP),
>> where already dead (like DEC/Compaq) or slipping into the embedded
>> market (like MIPS).

> MIPS had its chance to become the unified architecture for high-end
> workstations [1]. Until it was bought up by Silicon Graphics (SGI).
> Which, on the one hand was bitterly needed by MIPS, because they
> needed that cash injection, and by SGI, because they depended on the
> MIPS architecture.

> On the other hand, though, all other workstation developers, in fierce
> competition with SGI, didn't want /that/ dependency and went to look
> for/make other architectures (Power, Alpha, PA, you name it).

> So on the one hand, we might have, these days, been running on MIPS;
> on that other hand, we wouldn't have ARM, and -- who knows, soon,
> Risc-V. And Linus Torvalds wouldn't have had this cool stint at
> Transmeta. But that is a totally different kettle of fish. 

Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC in
1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also availble M68k
CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it would not be in
competition with the mainframes the PC was supposed to interface with
primarily.

If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC ecosystem
today would also look quite differently.

Grüße,
Sven.

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[tomas]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 09:15:10AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote:

[...]

> For the others: they where either on board from the start (like HP),
> where already dead (like DEC/Compaq) or slipping into the embedded
> market (like MIPS).

MIPS had its chance to become the unified architecture for high-end
workstations [1]. Until it was bought up by Silicon Graphics (SGI).
Which, on the one hand was bitterly needed by MIPS, because they
needed that cash injection, and by SGI, because they depended on the
MIPS architecture.

On the other hand, though, all other workstation developers, in fierce
competition with SGI, didn't want /that/ dependency and went to look
for/make other architectures (Power, Alpha, PA, you name it).

So on the one hand, we might have, these days, been running on MIPS;
on that other hand, we wouldn't have ARM, and -- who knows, soon,
Risc-V. And Linus Torvalds wouldn't have had this cool stint at
Transmeta. But that is a totally different kettle of fish. 

Or is it?

> -- 
> Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

:-)

Reminds me of an error message somewhere deep in TeX's or
METAFONT's bowels (sorry, from memory, therefore imprecise)
asking for "...someone to fix me fix me".

Cheers

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Computing_Environment

 - t


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