begin quoting Bob La Quey as of Sun, Oct 07, 2007 at 10:48:23PM -0700: > On 10/7/07, Tracy R Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Gus Wirth wrote: > > > They also happily run 16-bit code, aka DOS. Backward compatibility has > > > been remarkably preserved across the entire x86 line. > > > > At tremendous expense in chip real-estate and power consumption. I > > recall Andrew Lentvorski telling us all about it at Denny's one evening. > > Hmm ... I wonder why that would be so? Whay could the older > designs not be simply emulated in a layer of software? Andy?
They can... but then there's no reason to stick with the x86 line. One could -- and some do, or did when it was a reasonably-priced option -- switch to an entirely different processor. -- It's all marketing and vendor lock-in. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
