Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
1–10 of 86 posts
Re: Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
#2For those truly too lazy to click through to the article, x86-S stands for "simplified," with the idea being to boot directly into 64-bit mode instead of booting into 16-bit and bootstrapping to 64-bit mode. 16-bit mode would be removed entirely. It's not clear to me if 32-bit mode would be axed as well, or if it would be retained (maybe partially).
Re: Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
#3For those truly too lazy to click through to the article, x86-S stands for "simplified," with the idea being to boot directly into 64-bit mode instead of booting into 16-bit and bootstrapping to 64-bit mode. 16-bit mode would be removed entirely. It's not clear to me if 32-bit mode would be axed as well, or if it would be retained (maybe partially).
The PDF goes into detail on this. tl;dr:
> 16-bit and 32-bit protected mode are not supported anymore and cannot be entered. The CPU always operates in long mode. The 32-bit submode of Intel64 (compatibility mode) still exists.
Re: Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
#4For those truly too lazy to click through to the article, x86-S stands for "simplified," with the idea being to boot directly into 64-bit mode instead of booting into 16-bit and bootstrapping to 64-bit mode. 16-bit mode would be removed entirely. It's not clear to me if 32-bit mode would be axed as well, or if it would be retained (maybe partially).
It seemed pretty obvious to me from one of the graphics that they would remove 32-bit mode as well.
Re: Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
#5> Since its introduction over 20 years ago, the Intel® 64 architecture became the dominant operating mode.
Okay that's a bit heavy on the retcon, don't you think?
Re: Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
#6This makes no sense to me. Backward compatibility is a huge competitive advantage for Intel, and IMHO, it's royally messed up that vm86 mode doesn't work in 64-bit mode.
One DOS application I use was hurt by this: "old DOS OrCAD". It works well in Windows-XP on a 32-bit machine, but does not work at all in 64-bit Windows. (It's actually a 32-bit DPMI program and has drivers to use Windows GDI so you don't have to mess around with drivers).
More evidence: IBM 360 mainframe software still works in Z/OS.
It might be worth it for non-generic computing devices like cell phones, but Intel missed the boat there already.
Re: Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
#7For those truly too lazy to click through to the article, x86-S stands for "simplified," with the idea being to boot directly into 64-bit mode instead of booting into 16-bit and bootstrapping to 64-bit mode. 16-bit mode would be removed entirely. It's not clear to me if 32-bit mode would be axed as well, or if it would be retained (maybe partially).
Looks like you will still be able to run 32 bit user mode applications under a 64 bit kernel. I'm not sure, but I think 32 bit guest kernels get the ax as well.
" 3.3 Removal of 16-Bit and 32-Bit Protected Mode
16-bit and 32-bit protected mode are not supported anymore and cannot be entered. The CPU always operates in long mode. The 32-bit submode of Intel64 (compatibility mode) still exists. ... "
Re: Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
#8For those truly too lazy to click through to the article, x86-S stands for "simplified," with the idea being to boot directly into 64-bit mode instead of booting into 16-bit and bootstrapping to 64-bit mode. 16-bit mode would be removed entirely. It's not clear to me if 32-bit mode would be axed as well, or if it would be retained (maybe partially).
> It's not clear to me if 32-bit mode would be axed as well, or if it would be retained (maybe partially).
I've been reading the detailed pdf to see more details. It looks to me like 32-bit mode, specifically in the sense of a 32-bit distribution of modern software, is being retained. Segments would be converted more towards their 64-bit extremely attenuated mode, rather than the more robust functionality they have right now. So most 32-bit software shouldn't be affected, unless you're getting really dirty with the segmentation features or trying to support something like Win16.
Re: Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
#9> Since its introduction over 20 years ago, the Intel® 64 architecture became the dominant operating mode. Okay that's a bit heavy on the retcon, don't you think?
Why? Because it's really just AMD-64?
Re: Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture
#10> Since its introduction over 20 years ago, the Intel® 64 architecture became the dominant operating mode.
*cough*[1]