Re: Are 80x86 badly designed processors ?

From: E. Rosten (spamtrap_at_crayne.org)
Date: 08/02/04 

Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 17:52:24 +0000 (UTC)

>>So, in conclusion, there is a market for good CPUs that aren't supported
>>by Windows.
>
>
> Okay, and how many of the CPUs you alluded to are actually used on the
> desktop? I think it is fairly obvious that that is what Ivan was referring
> to.

Indeed, but the grandparent was referring to CPUs in general. The
desktop market is not the only market for CPUs; there are plenty of
other profitable markets. And not having to wait for a vendor, or write
your own makes life easier. This is even more applicable in the non
desktop space since in the server world, unix is very common anyway, and
in the embedded world, the Os is pretty much invisible. This neatly
sidesteps all the problems of linux not being like Windows.

> There are a myriad of applications for embedded CPUs where the Windows
> kernel wouldn't even fit into memory. The other chips you mentioned mostly
> fit into the workstation/server space.

And embedded. I don;t know if Windows runs on DragonBall processors, and
I'm sure it doesn't run on the m68k series, either.

>> > Almost all end-users prefer Windows (me too).
>>
>>Or Macs :-)
>
> [...]
>
> I hope you're kidding. Dell quite literally has 10 times more market share
> than Apple in the US, and that doesn't even take other PC vendors into
> account. Abroad Apple isn't even a competitor. Statistically end-users do
> not prefer Mac.

I wasn't being overly serious, but in my own observations, Macs are
rather more preferred than the sales figures show. It just happend that
the compatibility problems, and lack of low-end (ie inexpensive) models
seems to reduce sales. Interestingly, in the world of laptops, where
macs are avaliable towards the low end, and at very good prices, apples
sell rather well.

>>>From a more technical point of view, all versions of MacOS prior to OS X
> used cooperative multitasking. I would use Windows 95 again before I used a
> cooperative multitasking system.

Ick, OS9 is horrible as soon as you put it under any kind of load.
Windows 95 isn't much better. From what I've seen, OSX is as stable as
one would expect from its unix heritage.

-Ed 

-- 
(You can't go wrong with psycho-rats.)       (er258)(@)(eng.cam)(.ac.uk)
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