On Mon, 2007-10-08 at 00:52 -0700, Stewart Stremler wrote: > 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. >
e.g. - The Alpha systems. At DIGITAL we originally ran Quake II on Alpha using an x86 emulator. It ran at least twice as fast as it did on the fastest native x86 system at the time. The PPC also had x86 emulation for a lot of apps. PGA -- Paul G. Allen BSIT/SE Owner/Sr. Engineer Random Logic Consulting www.randomlogic.com -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
