151–160 of 234 posts
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The parent has a good point actually, because "mov eax,1" automatically zero-extends in 64-bit mode. It's still one byte longer than the equivalent AArch64 instruction, though.
Fine. If you are really into getting the shortest instruction, try "xorl %eax,%eax" then "incl %eax" which is four bytes (31 c0 ff c0).
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It's actually unrelated with Connectix. Connectix is much older, and was killed a long time ago. Virtual PC for Macs was a full-blown JIT though.
Every time I read anything about Connectix, I become more convinced that they were run by some combination of time travelers and genetically modified super-hackers.
One hell of a run.
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I'm a little ignorant on this, but how can you own the rights to instructions? Isn't that the same as owning the rights to an API, or the naming and operation of functions? I mean, would I be infringing if I re-implemented the C standard library, or the standard library of some language with a copyrighted spec? How can you even patent something like that? It goes beyond software patents, as it appears to me. But agai…
We're not talking here about what is right, or even what is correct under the law. We're talking about what a set of lawyers think they can plausibly use to bring an infringement case and not be laughed out of court. A broad spectrum of possibilities.
> To be fair Intel has done a lot of work to make the x86 as great as possible. Patent lawsuits are awful. I'm not sure just copying someone's technology and emulating it without paying a license fee is all that great either.
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If you execute your i386 binary on an Intel, AMD, or other licensed processor, then you're protected by the doctrine of exhaustion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_of_intellectual_pro... If you execute it in an emulator, though, all bets are off...
Here's an insane idea--what if every Win10 ARM laptop also included a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP chip (from a junked PC) glued inside the case? Would the x86 patent rights from that chip cover an emulator running on the ARM? (I'm pretty sure it's a no, but an Aereo-esque lawsuit arguing the opposite would be fun to watch)
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> All on non-Intel foundry processes. That was unimaginable 10 years ago. Not really. 15 years ago, AMD was outperforming Intel at a lower price.
That was not because of foundry process, but because of better architecture. Intel was leading or tied at process width and clock speed the whole time.
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1141534
Somewhat hilariously Intel released "Coppermine" series of CPUs in 1999, but those used Alu interconnects :D and were famously unstable above 1GHz.
AMD was also first to 1GHz. http://www.anandtech.com/show/498/4
Intel was even trying to dispute that fact, but its hard to convince PC hardware journalists you are first when they are already testing 1GHz Athlons on their own desks while reading Intel press release about closed door demonstration.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/1-ghz-intel-claims-it-was-first...
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Emulation is only an implementation of the ISA. The x86 ISA is hardly "as great as possible". In fact, it's downright crummy: x86-64 is as bloated as RISC architectures usually are without any of RISC's benefits. At best you can make the argument that x86 has done well in spite of the ISA, not because of it. The silicon-level implementation is another matter entirely, of course--but emulation has nothing to do with t…
x86-64 is a perfectly acceptable ISA. Strong memory ordering, no architectural optimizations leaking out like branch delay slots or stack windows. Pretty good i-cache efficiency through the use of two-address code and memory operands. Of course, Intel didn't have much to do with it. Most of it is either an accident of history or the work of AMD, who a lot of work regularizing the ISA in the 64-bit transition.
The article mentions Cyrix as a "victim" of Intel patent defense; however, Cyrix not only won their lawsuits, but they also went after Intel for patent violations in the Pentium Pro and Pentium II processors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrix http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/84...
You can win a lawsuit and still lose so much time and money on the way that you are worse off afterwards. Vice versa you can cause your opponents so much trouble with lawsuits that - even though you don't win them - you are better off than them afterwards.
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Worth noting that Microsoft's emulator is only emulating x86, not AMD64 (at least not yet)
I definitely didn't know. Are you sure about this/do you have a link?
"only 32-bit x86 support is being offered"
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10889/microsoft-and-qualcomm-b...
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If you don't have a hardware implementation, you are trying to patent an abstract idea, which Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International found to be invalid.
Nope, an abstract idea has always been invalid. Alice vs CLS Bank found that "on a computer" wasn't a sufficient inventive step to transform an abstract idea into something patentable [1]. This can be used to invalidate a claim, but won't shrink the scope of a claim to hardware only (as then, if software was the only inventive step, it would be a pure abstract idea). The USPTO certainly seems to think an ISA is paten…
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One has to wonder why this approach hasn't been successful in litigation against game console emulator developers.
Possibly because emulators didn't provide a source of potential licensing revenue—they're all free.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUfu-xOGr1U&t=9m0s
Sony sued the shit out of them and lost, and then bought VGS from Connectix. Sony bankrupted Bleem withe legal cost and later hired Bleem programmers :/