Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

blogs.windows.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 418 posts

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#91

Post by rkangel »

drevil-v2 wrote: post #32
oblio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agreed. I'd also want to add something for this: > Businesses above a certain size overwhelmingly use pcs unless they are in specific arty sectors. M1 won't change that, or at least not rapidly. Besides the fact, which many HN users working for FAANGS or startups don't encounter, that big enterprises are both rigid and also quite locked into the Microsoft/Windows/Office mono culture, big companies tend to hav…

I have seen that business orgs within an enterprise with their own P/L usually end up doing an end-run around IT and just buy MacBooks from suppliers or directly from Apple. Funnily enough, both times I saw this happen (at a large bank and later at a utility company) the only thing we needed from IT was network access and a Windows VM license so that we could run the god awful company payroll app that required IE11 t…

We kind of have this setup for those who want Linux as their desktop OS, it's provided by our IT and it's great.

If you want a Linux workstation, IT will provision you a Windows VM. It has email, Office, and our payroll app. With most stuff on Teams you can ignore it most of the time and get on with your work. IT's happy, we're happy.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#92

Post by lxgr »

me551ah wrote: post #82

One really good side effect of this move is going to be that you can run Android apps with ease on Windows. I wonder if this will make people move towards apps instead of electron apps. Since android apps are made for low power devices, they would run with minimal resource consumption on laptops. They are pretty snappy too.

How would an x64 emulator help with running Android applications on a Windows computer?

Are you maybe mixing this up with Microsoft's recent Android on Windows efforts? These would require an ARM emulator for x86, not the other way around.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#93

Post by sneak »

lxgr wrote: post #86
sneak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The xbox and the iPhone are the security models I expect on almost all mainstream computing devices soon. I estimate that it will be impossible or near impossible to execute any code that was not approved by the hardware vendor, and obtained by the hardware owner IDing themselves to the code distribution/signing service ("stores"). Anonymous software publishing or use/consumption will be relegated solely to what will…

> Already every mac available for purchase, even the Intel ones, requires online activation to wipe and reinstall the storage: I was under the impression that activation can be circumvented by setting the secure boot mode to something less than "maximum security", at least on Intel Macs. Is that a different mechanism then?

You are confusing signed boot security with the activation of the T2 chip.

The T2/M1 still needs activation data before it will do anything (like let you use the touchbar or touchid or secure enclave or even talk to the SSD) after a disk wipe.

This [online activation] is done after the recovery kernel has already booted from the USB install media. Signed boot and T2/M1 activation are different things entirely.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#94

Post by lxgr »

microtonal wrote: post #78
p1mrx wrote: post #47

It seems like Apple and Microsoft are picking up the ball that Transmeta dropped >10 years ago.

Older AMD CPUs, such as the K5 were RISC CPUs with an x86 decoding frontend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_K5

Isn't that arguably true for all modern x86 CPUs, including Intel's?

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#95

Post by fartcannon »

sneak wrote: post #76
qalmakka wrote: post #70

I hope that the possibility of an industry-wide switch to ARM doesn't take away the flexibility we now have with the PC. Standardized parts and a well defined firmware interface (and thus "standard" bootloaders instead of a multitude like on ARM) is what makes the PC truly special. Moving to a world where you can't install Linux or where every single machine has incompatible firmware would be disastrous, IMHO. Curren…

The xbox and the iPhone are the security models I expect on almost all mainstream computing devices soon. I estimate that it will be impossible or near impossible to execute any code that was not approved by the hardware vendor, and obtained by the hardware owner IDing themselves to the code distribution/signing service ("stores"). Anonymous software publishing or use/consumption will be relegated solely to what will…

This is the kind of comment dictators love. Crushed spirits. It's a cold, emotionless, frank extrapolation to a future without hope. You've already given up. Maybe you can drag a few more down with you.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#96

Post by oblio »

dan-robertson wrote: post #77
oblio wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, two main reasons: 1. Innovator's dilemma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma ARM in this case is the underdog, attacking the incumbent x86. It is the lesser tech because it started from "below" (lower value niches not taken by the incumbent which prefers higher profit margins). 2. RISC vs CISC has never been settled. Until Apple (and Amazon super recently) produced their super recent archit…

The reinvention that gave x86 the advantage over (workstation) RISC was OoO execution in the Pentium. It’s a bit silly to think of x86 and ARM as being so different these days. Most x86 code looks a lot like it was produced for a RISC chip and ARM has been gaining some more complex instructions and addressing modes. Academics may have felt that RISC was better than CISC for a long time but I don’t think they were pre…

Ah, yeah, forgot to mention Out of Order Execution.

> Academics may have felt that RISC was better than CISC for a long time but I don’t think they were predicting the world of today so much as they were incorrectly predicting the near past.

Plus you know, academics have been known to be wrong. That's why there's even a saying for it: science advances, one funeral at a time. People are emotional and get attached to their pet theories. There are many examples of this.

It's going to be interesting to see how CPU/GPU tech advances the next few years.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#97

Post by [deleted] »

rkangel wrote: post #85
codeulike wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses above a certain size overwhelmingly use pcs unless they are in specific arty sectors. M1 won't change that, or at least not rapidly. I think Microsoft have 5 or 6 different lines of business that bring in billions or more of revenue: windows, cloud, gaming, office/productivity and surface. They are the most diversified of the big players.

> M1 won't change that, or at least not rapidly. This to me is the interesting spectator sport for M1 (I have no intention of buying Apple hardware) - what are the competition going to do in response? Based on all the reviews and benchmarks, the new generation of Apple laptops are going to outperform anything AMD/Intel, while having twice the battery life. These are not 'small difference' only of interest to geeks, t…

[deleted]

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#98

Post by varispeed »

qalmakka wrote: post #70

I hope that the possibility of an industry-wide switch to ARM doesn't take away the flexibility we now have with the PC. Standardized parts and a well defined firmware interface (and thus "standard" bootloaders instead of a multitude like on ARM) is what makes the PC truly special. Moving to a world where you can't install Linux or where every single machine has incompatible firmware would be disastrous, IMHO. Curren…

I am hoping that given how open some ARM archs are that now it will be within hobbyist reach to create even their own motherboard, send to one of the fabs and assemble then run full-fledged Windows on it. This looks like a dream come true! You could definitely do that now and run Linux, but given that some software doesn't exist on Linux, this is very exciting.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#99

Post by oblio »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #71
oblio wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but check out large enterprises where software engineers are not the norm, common, or some times, not even present at all :-)

There is no such large enterprise. You need software engineers at the very least to operate an ERP, and any organisation that doesn’t rely heavily on an ERP to operate is not a large enterprise. Any large enterprise will also have an infrastructure team, comprised of people just as likely to have strong preferences about their operating systems. Technical and design staff may make up a relatively small portion of the…

I don't know in what kind of circles you mingle, but the software engineers I know that are working on ERPs are VEEEERY different to the ones that are working in FAANGS and startups. Think (Notepad++ and JDeveloper) vs (vim/emacs and cargo).

And as far as enterprise IT, there are a ton of Windows infrastructure folks, and again, there's little overlap between those and FAANG types. Plus infrastructure folks frequently hate Macs, for example (the stuff to manage fleets of Macs is vastly underpowered compared to stuff used to manage fleets of Windows PCs).

Plus even in those companies, the ERP & infra folks are maybe 1-5-10% of the workforce and they're generally in supporting roles (frequently they're temps or consultants), not in core business roles. Nobody listens to them :-))

And they generally want to get rid of them, they're seen as an expense.

I do agree that Windows-only places are becoming less common, but in big enterprises it's far from agreed that going outside the Microsoft ecosystem has a good ROI.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#100

Post by sneak »

fartcannon wrote: post #95
sneak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The xbox and the iPhone are the security models I expect on almost all mainstream computing devices soon. I estimate that it will be impossible or near impossible to execute any code that was not approved by the hardware vendor, and obtained by the hardware owner IDing themselves to the code distribution/signing service ("stores"). Anonymous software publishing or use/consumption will be relegated solely to what will…

This is the kind of comment dictators love. Crushed spirits. It's a cold, emotionless, frank extrapolation to a future without hope. You've already given up. Maybe you can drag a few more down with you.

My comment didn't suggest if this future is good or bad, or if I am pleased or dismayed by the state of affairs. I stuck to the facts and my own predictions about future facts and left my emotional opinions out of it.

Perhaps these sort of closed systems are crushing to you, as you have correctly assumed that they are to me. They aren't to most people: the iPhone is wildly popular. Many people will be very happy to get new M1 macs, xboxes, and iPhones this christmas.

Most people prefer the conveniences of central management, having never personally experienced the terrifying and violent failure modes of ubiquitous surveillance and censorship.

Post reply on HN