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x86 is dead, long live x86

engineering.mercari.com

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Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#101

Post by arcanemachiner »

Teever wrote: post #86
saghm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to be that pedantic, we might as well just say that because Intel and AMD aren't living entities so they can't be "dead". Or we could just accept that the original meaning of the phrase has evolved and is flexible enough to be used in situations where it's not absolutely literal.

I just closed another post on HN because the top thread descended into some bullshit semantics pissing contest so I come here and see the same. Is it just me or has anyone else noticed an increase in arguing over the meaning of words on HN lately?

Nerds have been arguing online about irrelevant pedantry as long as the Internet has been around. And this place attracts some pretty hardcore nerds.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#103

Post by tracker1 »

Symmetry wrote: post #41
slfnflctd wrote: post #32

When I think about how long chips like the 6502 have still been in active use (almost 50 years now), it is hard to conceive of a world where there isn't a significant presence of x86 activity for the rest of my life. The majority of 'the market' may go elsewhere, but for a gazillion reasons, x86 will not be disappearing for quite a while. At this point it would honestly surprise me if we didn't at least have high qua…

Plausibly we're headed for a world where feature size decreases stall out but manufacturing improvements continue to lower the price of transistors over time. In a world like that throwing in a few x86 cores even if the dominant ISA shifts might be worth it from a backwards compatibility standpoint even if other ISA become dominant. There's lots of complications to address there (strict x86 memory ordering versus loo…

IIRC, AMD's model for chiplets could already combine x86 and ARM as an example, not sure if any such beasts are in existence, but should be possible.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#104

Post by Clamchop »

hota_mazi wrote: post #92
redwall_hp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I work in an entire office of engineers with only Macs (mostly ARM ones now) and I only have a Mac at home, besides a very old ThinkPad running Ubuntu. (Aside from FFXIV on MacOS, I've moved any gaming to PS5 and Switch.) I haven't actively used Windows since 2008. It's such an obnoxious OS to use, and I have never seen a Windows laptop with quality in the same zip code as a Mac. There's always a terrible touch…

> I haven't actively used Windows since 2008. It's such an obnoxious OS to use You might want to modernize your perception of it, holding on to 15 year old views is not a very smart move in the tech industry. Windows 10 and 11 are a joy to use, and to develop. I used a Mac for 15 years and switched to Windows to develop 5 years ago, and now macOS looks extremely antiquated and creaky for development.

Sure are a lot of extreme opinions on operating systems when they all seem pretty damned similar to me on the fundamentals.

Development work strikes me as maybe the least distinguishing kind of task to compare them on. Very few hard choices to make unless you're developing for Mac or iOS.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#105

Post by rejectfinite »

selectodude wrote: post #20
redwall_hp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I work in an entire office of engineers with only Macs (mostly ARM ones now) and I only have a Mac at home, besides a very old ThinkPad running Ubuntu. (Aside from FFXIV on MacOS, I've moved any gaming to PS5 and Switch.) I haven't actively used Windows since 2008. It's such an obnoxious OS to use, and I have never seen a Windows laptop with quality in the same zip code as a Mac. There's always a terrible touch…

I just received a brand new Thinkpad from work. I don't even mind Windows but holy crap is that thing an absolute chore to use. I don't understand how this is still an issue while Apple has been putting out what amounts to the perfect laptop for like 10+ years now.

>I don't even mind Windows but holy crap is that thing an absolute chore to use.

What are your issues? I have a T490 that is a few years old and its great for my use. But I keep it docked in to a monitor and external mouse and keyboard 90% of the time.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#106

Post by Clamchop »

cthalupa wrote: post #81
adamc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole "click once on the app for it to wake up, click again for it to know which window you wanted" makes using Mac OS highly unpleasant on a daily basis. Yes, I'm on Mac OS, and no, I don't like it.

As a daily Mac user for about 13 years now I have no idea what phenomenon you're talking about. For any program that is open, even if it hasn't been in use for a while, I click it once, and it comes to the forefront immediately. For programs that are not open, I click it once, and then if I wait for it to launch, it appears in the forefront. If I immediately click back over to my web browser and begin using it before…

They might be referring to how clicks don't register with an app until it has focus (the first click being to focus it).

On Windows you can, say, click once to pause on a video playing in a browser window that doesn't have focus but is visible. On macOS, it's two clicks, because you have to focus the app first.

I don't care for the behavior but it's so minor to me that it carries essentially no weight.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#108

Post by dc443 »

ngcc_hk wrote: post #45
retskrad wrote: post #4

x86 lives on desktop now. Windows, Intel, AMD and Nvidia have more or less thrown in the white flag and given the laptop market to Apple.

Strange and whilst I have 8 macOS and 3 ipad plus 5 iOS devices I found in the train everyone use small dell notebook. I guess like me I like macbook 12 and that is what you use for non-desktop like notebook.

I've been hoarding apple devices too. I have a 12 inch macbook, recently brought it up to Ventura. But the blasted thing won't hold a charge. The battery is fine over 90% health but something is causing power drain while it sleeps even when I try to hibernate it.

It's impossible to find a use case for the thing. I might have to sell it.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#109

Post by thefurdrake »

slfnflctd wrote: post #32

When I think about how long chips like the 6502 have still been in active use (almost 50 years now), it is hard to conceive of a world where there isn't a significant presence of x86 activity for the rest of my life. The majority of 'the market' may go elsewhere, but for a gazillion reasons, x86 will not be disappearing for quite a while. At this point it would honestly surprise me if we didn't at least have high qua…

x86 is now permanently a part of humanity. 1000 years from now, when we've transcended our physical bodies and exist only as streams of sentient data and energy traveling between the stars, I 100% guarantee x86 will be detectable somewhere.

Re: x86 is dead, long live x86

#110

Post by pclmulqdq »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #75
slfnflctd wrote: post #32

When I think about how long chips like the 6502 have still been in active use (almost 50 years now), it is hard to conceive of a world where there isn't a significant presence of x86 activity for the rest of my life. The majority of 'the market' may go elsewhere, but for a gazillion reasons, x86 will not be disappearing for quite a while. At this point it would honestly surprise me if we didn't at least have high qua…

>chips like the 6502 have still been in active use (almost 50 years now) Also 8051 cores can still be found in modern products

8051s are just now getting phased out as control cores of IP blocks, which is pretty wild.

The 32-bit ARM and RISC-V cores are small enough and easier to program.

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