Slashdot Mirror
AMD's x86-64 Moves Forward
MBCook writes "AMD Hammer line is definatly moving forward. The Inquirer has a supposidly leaked memo from MS saying that they have working x86-64 silicon that runs both 32 and 64-bit Win XP. Van's Hardware is reporting that MS is backing x86-64 over Intel's IA-64, and that MS has apparently convinced Intel to move to x86-64! There is an article over at Ace's Hardware from CeBIT that includes some coverage of AMD's Hammer line (including its NUMA). Last but not least is News.com's report that MS is preparing Windows to support NUMA." And it looks like the line will be named Opteron.
A British doctor says "Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man put it in another and have him looking for work in six weeks."
A German doctor says, "That's nothing, we can take a lung out of one person put it in another and have him looking for work in four weeks."
A Russian doctor says, "In my country medicine is so advanced we can take half a heart out of one person put it in another and have them both looking for work in two weeks."
The American doctor, not to be outdone, says,"You guys are way behind, we just took a man with no brain out of Texas, put him in the White House, and now half the country is looking for work, and the other half preparing for war."
-
- posters that spell Microsoft with a $ or spell it MicroCrap or something.
- posters that glorify a feature that Linux has that BSD or Solaris as had for years, and list this reason as the most important reason to switch over
- posters that say Slackware is better because "you have to compile all of the applications for yourself"
- Rob Malda's arrogance
- frequent spelling and grammar mistakes. I'm not talking something really obscure or a minor technicallity in English, either. I'm talking substituting "loose" for "lose" or "they're"/"their"/"there". Really easily corrected mistakes. Any halfway decent fifth grader could pick up on these errors.
- people that post a mirror to a site that has been Slashdotted, which normally would be nice, but is hosted on a cable modem that is soon Slashdotted
- page widening
- random quashing of posts that don't agree with the Slashdot mindset.
- really annoying sigs
- unhumorous jokes that have to be "explained" to the audience. If your joke has to be explained, it's not funny.
- "BOYCOTT RIAA" and "I can't wait to see Episode II!" all in the same day.
- Rob Malda's childish obsession with legos.
- the Slashdot crew doesn't have any other jobs other than Slashdot, yet it seems it was better run when Rob was running it on a Multia in college in his spare time.
- the "page limit" with the subscription.
- The expulsion of Signal 11.
- ranting, paranoid articles whenever there APPEARS to be a GPL violation, with no verification whatsoever. Just a bunch of ranting posts about freedom.
- for that matter, no verification of articles at all. I wish I could count the number of times Slashdot's been scammed on two hands, but it's been so many.
- April Fool's articles on Slashdot. THESE AREN'T FUNNY. I wasn't going to explain, but whatever. Okay, let's say you run a website. On April Fool's, you post, say, ONE or TWO fake pieces of news along with the real news. This way, some people are fooled. By posting ALL fake news and "jokes", no one falls for the prank.
- no one buys Loki's games, but there is a big mystery when they go out of business.
- no NNTP frontend to Slashdot.
- direct links to bugzilla
- continuing tightening of the "troll filters" to the point where even normal posts are rejected by some stupid criteria
- self righteous posters who want everything under the sun to be Open Source, even though they have never written a line of code in their life
- whenever an article on a new scripting language is posted, all of the C users chime in "but it's not as fast as C". shortly after, all the assembly users chime in "assembly is the fastest". predictably, right after that, someone says "why don't we all just use machine code?"
- anecdotes on your grandmother using Linux to check her email and whatnot. this ALONE proves that Linux is better than Windows for ALL uses.
- cult-like devotion to Linux. reserve your fanaticism for a church, not a kernel.
- someone is not less of a person if they don't use Unix.
- posters who think that BeOS is having "a bad moment" and will surely rise to defeat all other operating systems
- posters who think Palm will open the source to BeOS for no reason at all
- people who think that Amiga isn't dead. The new virtual Amiga doesn't count.
- people who think that OS/2 isn't dead. 'Ecomstation' doesn't count.
- people who bemoan the loss of OS/2 while thinking it was a big conspiracy, completely IGNORING the fact that IBM did not advertise. we all KNOW OS/2 was technically superior to Windows at the time. You don't have to bedazzle us with tales of "running all the latest Windows and DOS applications aside native OS/2 apps". We've heard it all before. We know it WAS better.
- people who think that this is the last year ever we'll ever have to hire C++ programmers, because as we all know, Java is going to "kill it off"
- this is a good one. Completely expositionary articles such as "Surprised by Weath" in which ESR BRAGGED about how rich he was and how he wasn't going to give us any money. NO SIR.
- bitchslapping
- benchmarks that pit, say, Linux (lastest revision) against FreeBSD 3.0 or something old and useless.
- how banner ads for the site only link to other OSDN sites
- any links to nytimes.com
- when someone writes a comment with ^H to signify deletions
Hey editors! How are we supposed to take your site seriously enough to subscribe when you can't even spell.
Will Linux support NUMA in AMD?
Will there be any AMD 64bit variant of Linux?
"Okay," she said suddenly, "here's the scoop. Your name is Ayeka ... he's your nephew. The Emperor." Another ... and the weight of galactic opinion would be on ... who are you, exactly." ..." ... why did you abandon that duty to come get me?" I asked, ... I come all this ... he still cares about you ..." ... because we were rivals for his ..." she trailed off. "Uh. Well, ... we can't. No biggy. I can handle ... then paused. "Where will you ... ..." she muttered in her sleep. I blushed. She was ... atashi no Tenchi ... daisuki yo ..." she whispered. ... you ... " ... your name, when I said ..." ..." She shook her head violently ... it was a mistake, don't worry about ... no, were engaging in a dance ... ... you're a ..." she ... you think that I ... oh, Guide, this ... ... a clone possessing all her physical ... that was much more to my taste." ... ... ..." I whispered. ..." she was finally starting to break down. Tenchi lifted ... then realized the impossibility of it. ..." he said ... then shook his head. A moment ... but I think that you did ... to get someone killed ..." I would not let the tears ... lesbian.
Masaki. You are a princess of the Jurai Star Kingdom, the aunt of the
ruler of that Kingdom, and the ambassador to one of its few allies. A
week or so ago, while you were taking a vacation to the planet Mars, you
were kidnapped. The Imperial Security Agency immediately started to
investigate, and they determined fairly shortly that the men who had
taken you were in the employ of a certain Duke , who had been courting
your hand in marriage for a few years a while back, before you finally
told him to get bent. Anyway, this same Duke, about two weeks ago,
seceeded from the Kingdom. Some of the nobles in this sector do that on
the average of about twice a year, but the fact that he'd done so just
before you were seized was a big indicator that he was responsible.
Unfortunately, this tied Tenchi's hands."
"Tenchi?" I asked. "Who is Tenchi?"
She seemed to be rocked by the question. After a moment, she
replied, unsteadily. "He
moment, in which she seemed to be collecting herself, followed. "Anyway,
like I said, the fact that Duke Jorashi has seceeded from the Empire tied
Tenchi's hands. He could send in the whole damn fleet to get you out of
here, but it would be an act of war against an independant power. It'd
give all the other currently seceeded nobles an excuse to unite against
the Empire, and fighting *them* would give the Empire's *other* opponents
an excuse to invade
their side.
"So," she continued, "I volunteered to go in and rescue you
myself." She avoided meeting my eyes when she said that.
"And
"I'm Ryouko Ma-- just Ryouko. I'm Tenchi's bodyguard
"Then
confused. "Surely protecting someone as important as the Emperor is more
vital than rescuing one of his aunts."
She glared at me. "Typical, Ayeka, typical
way to do you a favor and --"
"Are we friends, then?" I eagerly pressed. "Or --"
"No," she said shortly, "we are *not* friends." She looked away
again. "But Tenchi
`Still'?
"... and I can't stand to see him upset or worried. I never
could."
With lacerating clarity, it came to me. "You love him, don't
you?"
She flinched, but still did not look at me.
"You and I were never friends
heart, weren't we?" I continued, sadly. "And you won --"
"No," she said shortly. "Neither of us won."
"But then --"
She turned to look at me with an impatient expression. "Look, I
don't have time to go into all the reasons you usually hate my guts. Back
to the situation at hand. I slipped past Duke Jorashi's defenses easy
and found out where you were. For some reason, he'd stashed you in
coldsleep. I broke you out of the tank you were in, and now I find out
that he also pumped you full of enough drugs to give you complete amnesia.
Great. So you don't have the ability to help me in our escape."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Don't make ex... cu... ses
it's not all your fault. It'd be nice if we could use your powers as well
as mine to get out of here, but
it."
"I'm sure you can."
She looked at me oddly, then shook her head. "Okay. We're far
enough away from their headquarters that we can take a few hours to rest.
I'm *so* sorry that I couldn't bring a change of clothes for you --"
I looked down and realized that I was naked. I wondered why she
thought I'd be bothered by it. Perhaps when I had my memories I'd be more
... modest, but it didn't really bother me all that much. I decided to
sit up, and covered my nipples and vulva, in case they were bothering her.
"-- but I *did* bring a blanket so you won't freeze your skinny
little butt off." She produced a small package from her belt, and it
unfolded into a large blanket, which she flung at me. I caught it, and
began to wrap it around myself. "Right. Try to get some rest, but don't
sleep too soundly."
I nodded, and began to lay down
be?"
"Huh? I'm not going anywhere."
"No, I mean, where are you going to sleep?"
She shook her head. "I'm fine. I'll keep watch."
I laid down. It was a warm blanket, and I had carefully wrapped
it around me to protect myself from the hard floor of the cave. Still, I
could not make a headrest out of it, so I was doomed to sleep uneasily.
Before I nodded off, I heard her yawning. "Are you sure that you
don't --" I asked.
"I'm fine, I told you. Don't worry your pretty little head over
me." There was a faint hint of anger in her tone.
I sighed, and closed my eyes again. Just before sleep took me, I
found myself wondering if she truly thought that I was pretty.
* * *
I awoke from my dreamless sleep an immeasurable time later, to the
faint sound of snoring. A brief flash of irritation consumed me, but it
fell away as I saw her, curled up in a ball a little ways away.
I knew that she was cold, somehow.
So I stood up, still swathed in the blanket, and went over to her.
It was not that hard to spread the blanket over both of us, and curl up
behind her. She was not very warm, and the floor was hard
But it felt good.
"T'nchi
obviously having some sort of dream about the one that she said that we
had both loved, and lost.
She began to twist around beneath the blanket. For a moment, I
believed that she was trying to steal more of it for herself, and I
resisted, pulling it so that she couldn't do so. That was when she rolled
over from where she was lying on her left side to lying on her right.
Facing me.
Our lips were only an inch apart.
"Tenchi
Words in a language I couldn't understand. And then she leaned forward
and she was kissing me.
Her tongue moved inside my mouth, caressing my teeth for a moment.
Slowly, I reached out with my own tongue to brush against hers.
Then her eyes opened a fraction.
And *then* they opened all the way.
She jerked back, spluttering. "Uh. Uh. I. Er." A deep breath.
"Wotinsamhilld'youthinkyou're DOING?"
I swallowed, still feeling her tongue in my mouth. "I
fell asleep, and you looked cold, and so I came over with the blanket and
you were dreaming and --"
"Oh," she said, backing further away, out from under the blanket.
"Well, that's okay then, all my fault, terribly sorry, don't do that ever
again, I mean I'm not cold, I can take interstellar temperatures for
crying out loud, of course I'm not cold --"
"Why are you running away from me?" I asked quietly.
She visibly shuddered. "Be-because I
I let the blanket drop to my waist. "Do you find me disgusting?
Is that why --"
"No! I mean, hell, it's nothing I haven't seen before, well a
couple times, and besides I'm a lot better built, so --"
"When you were sleeping," I continued, "you said a word. Daisuki.
What does it mean?"
She was silent for a long moment, and for a second I imagined that
I saw a single perfect tear trickling down her cheek. "It means love. In
Tenchi's native language." She was silent for another moment. "Did. Did
I say
I shook my head. "You spoke of Tenchi."
She closed her eyes, and smiled a sad, quiet smile. "Of course.
The one time I was with him, he spoke of someone else like that."
"Of the one who did win him?" I asked.
"No. Of someone we all lost
again. "It doesn't matter. It's
it."
I stood up, letting the blanket pool about my feet. "I want to
worry about it," I answered her quietly. "Why were we never friends, even
after we had both lost?"
There was something of a cornered animal in her eyes. "Because
... too many years of bad memories," she managed to make out.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I stepped close to her. Every step
brought me a little closer. Finally, I was standing with my breasts
against hers, staring deeply into her eyes. "I don't have any memories,"
I said, and kissed her again.
This time, my tongue moved into her mouth. I was startled but not
truly surprised to find her sharp teeth. In the short while that I'd
known her, I had always sensed something of a wild beast in her.
I hoped that the wild beast would be wild for me.
There was a momentary pulse and she was naked against me. I
pulled back, startled. "How --"
Her eyes were on fire. "A simple trick," she murmured and kissed
me again. Now our tongues were duelling
complex beyond imagination.
Before I knew what was happening, she was pulling me too the floor
of the cave with her. "Wait," I said, "the blank--"
"I don't want to wait," she said, and kissed my left nipple. That
made my mind, which was exploding from the sensations of her touching my
skin everywhere else, detonate in a whole new fashion. I didn't even feel
the grit of the cavern floor pushing into my back. I was too far gone
from her fingers, from her lips, from her
And then one of her fingers moved down to brush against my vulva,
and she paused. Her eyes were wide. "You are
whispered. I nodded.
She bent down and began to kiss me there. It was beyond
imagining. And then after a moment, she looked up at me. She met my
eyes.
She pushed her fingers in.
It hurt, a little.
But what came after made the hurt fade into a distant memory, and
I gasped and cried and in the end I screamed as she gave me the gift.
And what I screamed was her name.
We kissed again, and then I decided to give her my gift --
"Well isn't that cute?"
Her head whipped around, and too late I saw them standing there.
Hard faces, twisted in amusement and contempt. With weapons pointed at
us.
She could destroy them, I knew. But while she was destroying
them, they could slay me.
And she could not let that happen. She lowered her glowing hand,
and the glow around it faded. "All right," she said quietly, "you win."
Her clothes reappeared around her as she snatched the blanket and flung it
around my shoulders. "We'll come peacefully, won't we, Ayeka --"
She stared, baffled, as the squad leader laughed viciously. "Sure
you will. Right. After you put these on," he added, and tossed a set of
bracelets to her. She looked at them, shook her head -- more in annoyance
than in anger -- and clicked them on. She was looking right at me when
she did so, and she winked.
We were marched through the caverns for what felt like hours. My
feet were bruised and bleeding within minutes, but whenever I stumbled she
was there to catch me.
At last we came to an door in the wall, through which we were
pushed. The lights came on a moment after we were inside and the door
closed.
A cold eyed man with slate gray hair was seated on a throne inside
an almost palatial suite. He smiled cruelly at us. "Well, the rumors are
correct, then. His Imperial Mongrel sent his official pirate to spy on
us, and to steal my property.
"Go consort with goats, your Grace," she said, sneering.
"Now where would be the amusement in that?"
"They suit you more than Ayeka ever will," she hissed.
He blinked, as though she had said something he hadn't expected,
then laughed uproarously. "You
*is* amusing!"
"Huh?"
"Lady Ryouko," he asked, drawing out every syllable of her name,
"do you actually think that I would keep such a prize as Princess Ayeka in
cold sleep, where all I can do is look at her charms?"
He tapped a button on the side of his throne, and a section of the
wall to his left slid open, revealing a clear, glass wall. Behind the
wall was a young woman with purply black hair, tied back into a pair of
pony tails, dressed in a formal kimono. She had an outraged expression on
her face, and she looked as though she were about to start pounding on the
glass
And then her eyes met mine, and the young woman froze.
She looked back and forth between me and the young woman with a
terribly confused expression. I couldn't understand why.
"Ayeka?" she finally murmured while gazing at the young woman.
"Given the remarkable potency of the power of Jurai that runs
through the Crown Princess' veins, I would have been fool indeed to
attempt to force myself on her. She would probably have annihilated me.
But a clone of the Princess
qualities without the annoying power
I gazed at the back of her head, for she was staring at the Duke.
I whispered her name.
"And while the clone was being grown, I decided to make some
modifications. A female who cannot enjoy what is being done to her, for
the simple fact that she is biologically oriented towards other women
I have always yearned to rape such a one. 'Tis a dream of mine."
"You son of a bitch," she said in an extremely quiet tone.
He looked speculative. "As I recall, yes, I am. Now then. You
stand accused of trespassing on my property. How do you plead?"
"You're gonna die, you sick fuck," she said in the same tone.
"I'll interpret that as guilty. Therefore, we sentence you to
death. Executioner!"
I turned to see the leader of the guards step forward, carrying a
heavy beam rifle of some kind. Behind me, she lifted a clenched fist and
began to concentrate.
Nothing happened.
"It wasn't easy to build a set of restraints calibrated to your
power level, you know," the Duke commented offhandedly. "But it's worth
every credit."
The beam rifle in the guard's hand began to hum with power, and he
leveled it at her.
At my
In the instant that the weapon flashed, I stepped between her and
it.
I learned more about pain in that moment, and then I collapsed. I
did not scream.
She did though. She screamed what she had thought was my name,
and dropped down to grab me. She was all but incoherent, and I was in too
much pain to say anything. But one thing I did say as the darkness rushed
upon me.
"Dai... daisuki
The first thing I learned, when I awoke, was pain.
The last thing I learned, as I died, was love.
Epilogue.
AYEKA:
I felt a sudden stab of pity as I saw Ryouko bending over the body
of my clone, sobbing as intensely as she had when Tenchi had announced
that he was to marry her mother.
I didn't understand *why* she was carrying on like that, though.
"Abominable marksmanship," Duke Jorashi said shortly to the
guard. "Well, here's your second chance. Don't miss this time."
"Don't even *think* about it," Tenchi's voice snapped.
Almost involuntarily, my head turned from where it was gazing.
Tenchi, his moustache resting over a flat, angry mouth, was standing only
a few feet behind where Ryouko was. I gasped.
"How dare you!" Duke Jorashi shrieked. "This is an act of war,
oh Emperor!"
"Oh?" Tenchi replied. "Then what about this? Screen."
A holographic screen, like the one Washuu uses, appeared beside
him. The image of Duke Jorashi was on it, with a look of contrition on
his face. "Lord Emperor Tenchi, I most humbly recant my recent secession,
and regret deeply our dispute. I further invite you to visit my world at
your earliest convenience, that we might discuss certain strategic
matters."
"That is a lie!" the Duke shouted. "A fabrication!"
"You'll have plenty of time to try and prove that at your trial
for kidnapping. Ryouko --"
"Trial?"
Ryouko's voice was more quiet than I'd ever heard it, even on the
horrid day nearly a thousand years ago when she'd thought that she'd lost
Tenchi forever, to Kagato. In her eyes was a new level of berserk fury.
I stepped away from the glass, and began to build my personal forcefield
up to maximum.
"HE DIES NOW!" she screamed as she raced towards the Duke. The
restrainer bands shattered and fragmented as she drew on more power than
she'd ever pulled before. Her sword manifested, and the glass wall before
me shattered from the backlash of the power.
In the twinkling of an eye, Tenchi was standing between her and
the Duke. "NO," he said in his most authoritative tone.
"LET ME PAST, TENCHI! HE IS MINE!" she screamed, swinging a fist
through his head. Immediately, I realized that he was here only as a
holographic projection.
"No, Ryouko! If you kill him now, you're a murderer. We're going
to use the system this time!"
"HE --"
"I know what he did! And I'm *sorry*. But this is the way it has
to be!"
"He
his arms to try to embrace her
"I'm sorry," he said again. Then he turned to glare at the Duke,
who was cowering behind his throne. "But rest assured, your Grace, that
Imperial justice will be *very* swift in your case."
The Duke was too terrified to say a word. There was a faint hint
of urine in the air.
"Ayeka," he turned at last to me, "are you all right?"
"I am quite fine, Tenchi. That craven never dared to lay a finger
on me."
"All right. I'll be down in a shuttle very shortly." He turned
to look at Ryouko, who had once more bent over the body of my clone. He
closed his eyes. "I wish
later the hologram dissolved.
I stepped gingerly out past the wreckage of the wall, just as
Ryouko lifted the clone's corpse up, wrapping it in what remained of the
blanket she'd been wearing, and began to slowly walk towards the door
leading out of the Duke's bunker. "Ryouko?" I asked, startled. "Where
are you --"
"I have a grave to dig," she softly answered, and teleported away.
And I wondered.
RYOUKO:
I spent the entire trip home in bed, locked in my cabin on the
throneship. No one, not even "Mom", who had come to help with the phony
broadcast from the Bastard, was foolish enough to intrude on me, until the
day before we were to arrive back on Jurai.
The door to my cabin swished open. Of course, only one person on
the ship had the authority to enter any room on the ship. I stayed where
I was, waiting for him to start chastising me.
Finally, the silence became overpowering, and I spoke. "I was
wrong. I shouldn't have --"
"I didn't come here to argue with you
the right voice.
Her voice was so much like *hers*, but there were a double handful
of differences in the way that she spoke. So my heart only stopped
beating for a second. I rolled over to look at her. She was standing,
elegant as always, near the door. And I wondered, as our eyes met,
whether I would always remember *her* taste whenever I looked at her.
"I came," she said slowly, "to thank you for what you tried to do.
For invading Jorashi's homeworld to rescue me, without Tenchi's
permission, so that he could avoid a war. I am grateful, Ryouko."
I looked away. "I didn't do anything. I barged in head first and
managed to get
come again. I *would* not.
"And I grieve for your loss," she said.
"What loss," I choked. "I was dumb enough to fall for someone who
... hell, I thought she *was* you, but now I find out that she was all but
*programmed* to fall for me. Something as stupid as that doesn't deserve
to be called a loss."
There was silence for a moment.
"I will say only this, Ryouko. Duke Jorashi had to make changes
to her biology, to make my clone a
"But not many."
I whipped around and stared at her standing in the doorway, not
looking at me. "What?" I hissed.
"Do you know what frightened me the most when you raided Jurai?
Not the damage you caused. Not Yoshou running after you. But one very
simple thing. It frightened me that someone so beautiful could be so
vile."
She stepped out of the door, and it closed behind her.
And I wondered.
"AYEKA":
I paused as I walked towards the light, and saw my beloved's heart
beginning to heal. And smiled. "She's going to be all right, isn't she?"
I asked the Presence who walked with me, holding my hand.
OF COURSE.
We began walking again.
Controll Group strikes back for all those sugar pills.
People please. It's not april fools day anymore!
To me it sounds like a dinosaur ... look ma, all those wild Opterons running around.
Hmmm ... like a bunch of cows is a "herd" ...
Will a bunch of Opterons be called a "beowulf"?
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
I find it highly unlikely that _anyone_ could convince Intel (or any company, for that matter) to switch to a competitors architecture. Hammer will remain at AMD and IA-64 will stay on course with Intel. I'd need to hear it directly from both BODs to believe otherwise. Then again... I've been wrong before. :)
Hoax.
The Win64 product is compiled for the Itanium instruction set. it won't run on x86-64.
that would explain why AMD is backing M$ in the M$ trial that's going on!
It scares me to see huge companies like this, conspiring in court.
Honestly though, I thought it would have been Intel, not AMD doing this.
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
When all you have is a Hammer(TM)...yadda yadda
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
I can't wait for one of these to be benchmarked against the current Intel line. But Opteron? Reminds me of Optimus Prime from Transformers. Then again, you may need a transformer just to run one of these :)
Hmm... Maybe that could be the new motto.
Has anyone done a good comparison of what the new AMD chips promise VS what Sun has already delivered? I've been toying with getting a Sunblade 1000 for some time now, if AMD can provide me with a lower cost system with comparable performance I may hold off a but longer.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Amazingly done, and right on the mark. I would salute you as a troll, but there are no fabricated facts in your article; it is the one hundred per cent truth.
x86-64 is much closer to the old x86 architecture than IA64. x86 SUCKS. It has sucked for years. Moving to IA64 would mean trashing a bunch of legacy code, but it also means that new applications wouldn't be saddled with 25 years of architectural baggage from an architecture that should have been taken out and shot 20 years ago. So once again, by chosing backwards-compatibility over everything, Microsoft is holding back the industry.
I really like that Intel add on the CNet page, it really makes me think twice about getting an AMD powered chip ;-)
Megatron ;)
Anyone remember the villan Megatron from Transformers?
Microsoft is holding back the industry
And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that every man, woman, child and manager on the earth doesn't want to re-purchase every piece of software and hardware they own.
I wonder why this is listed as a leak.
When AMD announced this at a press conference a few hours ago.
AMD nails Microsoft backing for Hammer-CNET
MS to confirm Hammer support-The Register, UK
Microsoft to Support AMD's Hammer-eWeek
A webcast of today's conference call announcing Opteron is available here
-Mark
Technically it's not the editor's spelling but the submitters. I'd have thought that 'editing' implies they have the right to 'edit' the submission before slapping it on the front page. But that would be a little too much work for these monkies... Right Chrisd?
Well, back when AMD bought NexGen, they trashed NexGen's plans for intel-incompatible dsp-like instructions for their next processor (what was to later become the AMD K6) and licensed Intel's MMX instruction set instead. While not a complete architecture, AMD did choose to license a competitor's instructions.
Can't touch this.
IA64 isn't even in competition with x86.
Intel wasn't planning to target the IA64
to consumers at all for several years.
If you're lusting for IA64 you might as
well just switch to UltraSPARC, because
the IA64 chips are so enormous they'll
never be economical.
I'm gonna hold off on thinking that MS is supporting x86-64 completely. They already have code that works in IA-64. If I had to guess, I would say that MS will release products for both architechtures. The source code for Windows or office is the same for either 64-bit platform, and all it takes is compiling for one or the other. They already have tools that works for IA-64, and I read somewhere they have x86-84 stuff in the works. It won't cost them any money to publish both versions.
They'll probably push one or the other once the market starts leaning in a particular direction. I really hope it's IA-64. I want x86 to die as soon as possible.
Considering what AMD has managed to do for an old war-horse like x86, I wonder what they could do for PPC? I'd heard a rumor that there were some talks with Apple about becoming a second source since Motorola couldn't get their yeilds up. And doesn't the new CEO come from Motorola? If they're concerned about market share, a PPC venture could help them grab an additional 5% of the market becoming Apple's supplier.
"As we reported yesterday, Microsoft is committed to supporting AMD's x86-64, the open standard instruction set native to Hammer. Key decision makers inside the software company have been so enamored with x86-64 that the software giant persuaded Intel to adopt the Hammer language.
One of most avid proponents of x86-64 is the legendary Microsoft programmer responsible for the NT kernel. David Cutler, formerly of DEC, has reportedly voiced inside Microsoft extremely strong preferences for x86-64 over Intel IA- 64. Allegedly, Cutler and Microsoft do not want to expend the extra resources to produce ongoing support of IA-64, an instruction set Cutler and others inside the software giant reportedly disdain as inferior."
Got to:
http://www.vanshardware.com/
Hey all...look at this email I just got...I got it on Hotmail so the payload was removed automatically...
> From : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject : Worm Klez.E immunity
> Date : Wed, 24 Apr 2002 14:43:17 -0700
>
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Received: from [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] by hotmail.com (3.2) with ESMTP id
> MHotMailBE90725A000B4136E82480768D258D4D0; Wed, 24 Apr 2002 14:45:01 -0700
> Received: (from daemon@localhost)by f04n09.cac.psu.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id
> RAA121756for xxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com; Wed, 24 Apr 2002 17:44:06 -0400
> Received: from atlantic.mail.pas.earthlink.net
> (atlantic.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.179])by f04n09.cac.psu.edu
> (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA133916for ; Wed, 24 Apr 2002
> 17:44:00 -0400
> Received: from 21-180.redback-1.noc.supernet.com ([64.41.21.180]
> helo=Bxka)by atlantic.mail.pas.earthlink.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #2)id
> 170UXl-0001kp-00for xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Wed, 24 Apr 2002 14:43:17 -0700
> From sallyk@early.com Wed, 24 Apr 2002 14:46:39 -0700
> X-PH: V4.1@f04n09
> Message-Id:
>
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haha...someone is sure to get screwed by this one!
This info sounds about 23 days late to me.
Slashdot's queue must be way deep.
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
Is first off going to allow me to address a significantly larger main memory which is a good thing (tm) because in the near future I see many people (not average consumers) needing more RAM than the 32 bit x86 architecture can provide.
;>) You know, I don't think anyone ever got the slot-a boards just right....
Second, it allows me to run all of my existing software which is also a good thing... but, will they eventually phaze out the need for 32bit support? I for one hope the 32 bit era is phazed out quickly... that way the extra die space can used for something like more cache.
Once the GCC team has all of the bugs worked out for the Hammer platform I will personall recompile all my apps for the 64 bit architecture (that is when I get a hammer).
I don't know about everyone else, but as soon as these things hit the street, and a good motherboard comes along (first run AMD boards are usually horrible, and I have had first hand experience with them several times
Anyways... just my 2 cents
MS: I'll suck yours if you suck mine first, and I
promise to warn you when I'm ready.
AMD: Ok.
P.S. The IA64 is a threat to MS domminance because
there are already several UNIX variants for it including the latest version of HP-UX. MS has been illegely fighting the HP-Compact merger partly because of this. BTW most attitudes about the merger originate from the MS FUD machine. Collage students are so easy to manipulate!
Most realize that MS is attempting to take over the imbeded market, but what most do not realize is that they realy plan on taking over all Tst& meas. My co is already bending over nicely for them.
The mascot for AMD's Hammer needs to be that guy from Scryed.
Well, I wouldn't have to ... of course I might have to recompile. Some of those recompiles might have to wait some weeks or months till developers put in some new #ifdef's, but that's really not a big deal if there's some sort of advantage to the new hardware, like cheaper/faster/lower power/easier to write software for. It's probably the shortage of compelling examples of reasons like these that have caused folks to stay away from Itanic, in droves. [snaggletooth] And herds, and flocks, even. [/snaggletooth]
When a graphics processor is 128-bit, it means you can work on 128 pixels at once, basically doing the same thing to each one in parallel. Or, alternatively, 16 pixels at once, operating on an 8-bit color channel, still doing essentially the same operation to each one at the same time, in parallel.
When a CPU is 64- or 128-bit, that means its computational units can crunch on integers 64 bits in size. Roughly speaking, a 32-bit processor can work on integers between 0 and a few billion (2^32 is around 10^9), and a 64-bit processor can work on integers between 0 and a billion billion (2^64 is around 10^18). Think of a pocket calculator with twice as many digits across the display, and you have the right idea. Same old calculator, bigger numbers.
Anandtech said:
The name is Opteron and although it somewhat reminds us of the pain we went through when the Duron was announced, it's here to stay. The idea behind Opteron is to build off of the Latin root optimus meaning best or if you play with the translation a bit you get optimal unit or flagship.
Well, that's quite a stretch. Wouldn't "Octeron" or "Octalon" be better? That O-P-T doesn't go with the E-R-O-N.
...but having owned a first gen. athlon classic on a first generation mobo (using a first gen. AMD chipset), and two first gen. Athlon XPs on a first gen. Tiger S2460 mobo (using a first gen. AMD MP chipset), I recommend you to stay away from anything from AMD before its second incarnation. And that will be 2003H1 for hammers, can you wait that long? BTW in both cases problems were related to the chipset, BIOS and lack of workarounds for discontinued motherboards; all 3 cpus were excellent.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
My perception of "Opteron" was being derived from "optical"
For example, using optical chip technology.
I guess that's entirely forgiveable as Intel's "coppermine" implied using copper interconnects.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
hmmm... and yet noone has seemed to put much merit on the idea that AOL/SUN/Oracle/states may conspire in the MS trial... hmmm
Much of the stuff mentioned in the article is confirmed and true, but this is a blatant lie to me:
:)
Van's Hardware is reporting that MS is backing x86-64 over Intel's IA-64
Windows XP has been running on IA-64 for ages now, Nvidia's got drivers for it, why would they support x86-64 OVER IA-64? Why not both? It appears they're doing both, and I've seen absolutely nothing to say otherwise.
It wouldn't make any sense for MS not to support both ISAs. It's entirely possible (it's been done already), so why not keep them out there?
I think Van Smith's a little off here.
Looks like AMD is getting their end of the bargain. Whether windows will even run on intels new chips or not, AMD looks like they have a headstart and the backing of M$.
I suppose I should have expected this. AMD was staking it's whole future on their 64 bit solution support for which might have been iffy. With this they practically guarantee their future, maybe even take the lead from intel. We'll have to see how well prepared intel was with plan B (copying AMD if plan A failed).
Now we can re-do those bill gates phonecalls in the last story and fill in the proper information.
Bill Gates: Hello mr Sanders, I need a favour. How would you like M$ to back amd-64 over intel-64?
Sanders: Ok Bill. What can I do for you?
Bill Gates: We would like you to be our witness in this pesky antitrust trial. What do you think you could say in our support?
Liberty.
Mo bits be betta, you! Awwwwwwww yea! Dat's whut I'm talkin bout!
I am one stupid nigger.
One thing that worries me about x86-64 is the page tables. They're 4 levels deep, and that still only gives a 48-bit address space. They stick with 4k pages. I guess they had to do it for backward compatibility, but to me this is clearly not the best approach.
Though, IA-64 is pretty questionable too. The VLIW aspect is cool, but the compilers are a nightmare. Nobody knows how to write compilers to take advantage of speculative execution, for one thing.
I'm not familiar with any other 64-bit architectures, but surely they're better than both of these?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Using x86-64 is great. It means that people used to coding in 32-bit x86, will be able to easily adapt their codebases to 64-bit, all the while learning about 64-bit coding and preparing their code. Then when the time comes to move to IA64, their code will already be prepared, and they'll have the necessary skills to make it work great on the new platform.
Every time a complete and total change is made, developers have to spend forever re-learning - but take Win32 for example. Win32 was similar enough to Win16, that Win16 developers were able to easily port their code, and then learn how to write good Win32 code. Now they are writing pure Win32 from the start, and they never had a problem, because it was an incremental step up instead of an enormous change all at once.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
I can't say what's correct myself, but I think you may be jumping to conclusions.
Welcome To Microsoft Windows XP.net 2005 SE
! Found linux! Automaticly deleting and using properity linux blocking technology!
X86-64 defines new integer registers r8-r15.
Less register pressure == much faster software!
This chip is awesome! I can't wait to run Linux
on it!
I've come across a lot of people saying that x86 is outdated, but people aren't willing to move to the next level. Isn't there some way to cut out old instructions slowly? Say make some new instructions to replace certain ones and then promote a standard where the software is labeled "exclusive version X support" and those instructions are used instead. Applications could run both at once but those "exclusive" applications could still run once another processor is released supporting the rest of the updates and dropping the rest of the originals. I'm not all that familiar with CPU workings, but tell me, is it possible upgrade a CISC chip line by replacing the codes in two stages?
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
I can hardly wait for the Redhat i386 RPMs for Hammer so I can really enjoy its performance.
you can run word without crashing! you rock! what progress!
Given how well AMD designed and executed the K7 (Athlon) my expectations are to see some seriously good performance for their follow-on chip.
But, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Intel's IA-64 is evidence of that.
Does anyone have any idea how fast the K8 will be in real life?
Everywhere I've looked I haven't seen any performance numbers for the Hammer. How does it compare to say, the Power4?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The Alpha proved that the MARKET is not ready for a non-backwards compatible chip.
It's not what I want, it's not what you want, it's what the MARKET wants. I know. I used to work at DEC/Compaq and API. The market drives technology, not the other way around.
If you read about the architectures, you'll see that when you compare x86, x86-64, IA-64, and Alpha, that -technically-, the Alpha was the best. However, it's applications that call the shots. x86 might not be as "elegant" solution as IA-64, but it allows easy migration to 64-bit computing without the expense of moving to a totally different architecture. It's a low risk solution. You can convince your boss to update your servers to these new fast AMD systems and run your apps as is, then be a hero when you migrate some big database to use 64-bit addressing and memory management without buying a new server!
I fully expect to see Clawhammer-based motherboards and CPU's at around $300 or so LONG before you'll see IA-64 at that price point. That alone will push x86-64 from the ground up.
(And because of architectures like Alpha, Linux will be ready to roll, fully 64-bit) Not to mention laptops running on Clawhammer!
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
AMD has clearly trumped Intel today with their x86-64 chip (Opteron?) - and Intel's development is 6 months to a year behind AMD.
Only a few _thousand_ Intel Itanic-based machines have been sold. That's a complete disaster for Intel!
The reason why Microsoft hates the chip so much is due to the fact that it is extremely difficult to write compilers for (freaking impossible if you ask me). Also the Itanic does not lend itself well to JIT compilers (.Net or JVM).
The x86-64 architecture is not revolutionary - it just is the right technology at the right time.
... and who are you and what work have you done with x86 instructions to hate it so much... and do you have a reason for hating it so much, other than the usual rant you have heard? Most modern compilers don't even touch the legacy instructions.
Dear God! How fucking lame!
Another hacked on extention to the same old architecture that we've been using since the 4004 and 8080 (no, seriously). The basic 8-bit core, the bizarrely segmented registers, the warped-ass extentions, and the CISC instruction set... it all makes me sick. Not to mention that we're still using a fucking BIOS.
Have you ever used something with OpenBoot? It's incredibly nice.
But no, we're still using a system that's basically an overglorified 386DX.
Despite the speed hit, the IA64 architecture was a step in the right direction. A big step. In this case, AMD is going to be setting the industry back.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
But since that name is trademarked, just go with eneron, or opteron or epsilon...
Pull a M$ and just come out and "embrace" AMD's 64bit technology. The first family of chips will be directly compatable, but then starting with the next wave, they slowly start introducing Intel Only (tm) features and once again force AMD to play catch up. How many people believe that Intel will play in the sandbox with AMD's shovel for a second longer than they have to.
Take a look for yourself.
Thats because everyone here are close minded MS haters. The only thing MS is guilty of is playing the game well. Passing judgment on MS actions is the same as passing judgment on capitalism. I am not saying there is anything wrong with this, pure capitalism pretty much sucks (which is why we are not a purely capitalistic society).
In my mind AOL is far more evil then MS, Sun is just bitter that they aren't MS and Oracle doesn't want a fair fight, they want one that's stacked in their favor.
Hmmm... that's half an argument....
What do you suggest replacing it with???? There's always going to be 1 dominant force in any industry. I don't see what other architecture you could replace it with.
Even if you spent gazillions of $$$$$$s to fab something twice as fast for the same price the competition would catch up within 18 months anyway and there's no way your gonna get all those x86 binaries recompiled in time.
The nearest anyone got was Alpha with FX!32 recompling those x86 binaries on the fly. On the other hand how much faster is it now.... (please factor in cost) and where's that chip designer fellow gone... Hmmmmm....
There are many architectures to be chosen from - for now we have a clear winner - hyper pipelined CPUs with a huge instruction decoder chopping up the x86 instruction format. Perhaps stack machines or some kind of programmable logic perhaps logic in memory. 1 thing is clear - it had better be able to keep up with the best x86 CPU whilst running x86 code. It is the dominant binary format.
Matthew
"None of this shit works" -W.Shatner
Transformer named Opteron? If there wasn't then that would make a good name for one. He could he Optimus' cousin, and kick Hot Roddie's little butt.
Does anyone know how 64bit processors might play into IPv6 conversion?
My thinking here is that with a 64bit data path, the processor would be able to examine IPv6 addresses in one cycle, thus improving performance.. is it reasonable to think that 64 bit processing could make IPv6 faster?
How on Earth did Apple manage the migration from 68k to PowerPC then? I can even run my old 68k applications under _classic_ under OSX.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
I understand that AMD can't even meet the demand for the K[67] chips (and hasn't been able to for quite a while now).
2 hours after they got the hardware the memo says they had 64-bit Windows XP running. Sounds fishy to me. I'm sure they had simulators, but they did a perfect port with the simulator? I have trouble believing this.
I think the memo is fake.
intel being outclassed with their own architecture... they start something over 20 years ago, drop it to do something new, and end up watching AMD's success or failure on x86-64 to see if they should ride AMD's coat-tails. i love it :)
- Microsoft is holding back the industry
Yes, you're absolutely right, but Microsoft are masters at getting people to constantly buy upgraded software and hardware. Everytime they release a new OS, you have to get an upgraded firewall, upgraded anti-virus, upgraded system tools etc etc. If you don't want to upgrade your software, don't upgrade the hardware. If you're forced into getting new hardware, stump up for the software.And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that every man, woman, child and manager on the earth doesn't want to re-purchase every piece of software and hardware they own.
Or get Linux.
*cough*54billion*cough*
*cough*chargeoff*cough*
Just your average computer science senior. I like doing assembly work for something like MIPS, and I don't like doing it in x86. The "usual rant" is that x86 is a very old architechture, with ad-hoc features added every so often to let it keep up. As usual as that rant may be, it's quite true. 8 general purpose registers suck. We can do a lot better nowadays.
The engineer in me doesn't like x86 because it's kludgy, and overly complex (has 4 operating modes of which most folks use 2, for example). Intel and AMD have to waste a lot of silicon that translates x86 instructions into their internal instructions. Seems like it's about time to start using something modern, not built on a legacy ISA.
Admittedly, I haven't done too much assembly work. Perhaps x86 is great. But most of the reading I've done and the system architechture classes I've taken lead me to believe that x86 is just a little too dated.
When the 8086 processor debuted it was by far an inferior processor to both the Zilog Z8000 and the Motorola 68000. It wound up dominating the market place for several reasons.
1. Software - the 8086 had a leg up on everyone because it had a translator which allowed the thousands of CP/M applications to be ported to it easily. The killer ap at the time was WordStar.
2. The 8086, and in particular the 8088, were less expensive to build machines around.
3. The 68000 and the Z8000 were comparatively elegant and beautiful designs; the 8086 was strong and ugly. Pick Mike Tyson over Cindy Crawford in a fight. Intel was able to turn marketing from a engineering and software beauty contest into a fight - and it came out on top.
Today the shoe is on the other foot.
1. The Opteron does a much better job of running 32 bit aps than either Merced or Mckinley - similar to advantage 1 above.
2. The Amd processor will be a lot less expensive to build for - reason number 2 above.
3. The Intel processor has the beautiful new architecture - the Opteron the good old strong and ugly one.
The only way Intel is going to come out on top this time is to make an even stronger and uglier 64 bit version of the X86; something which looks like a 64 bit version of the current Pentium 4 - ridiculous pipeline for super high clock speeds etc.
Right now things don't look very good for Intel.
and that MS has apparently convinced Intel to move to x86-64!
So Intel gets to license the x86-64 instruction architecture from AMD. Har! Har! Revenge is sweet.
The first thing that comes to my mind is "optional", which is perhaps not so good for the company holding the second place in the market. Maybe they should have called it the "Superon".
Incidentally, I wonder how many people relalize that "durus" means "hard" in Latin, so "Duron" was kind of suggestive...
Aren't these are the same men, women, and managers (children, managers, whatever ;-) who buy new computers and apps every 1.5 years anyway because their previous computers die of Old Windows Disease/Planned Obsolescence/Lack of Support/etc? They re-buy most of their hardware and software over and over again.
Besides a larger memory address space, does this 64-bit architecture do anything significantly better than the 32-bit stuff out there now?
-ted
reminds me of an ornithopter. It's the idea played around by Da Vinci et al. that you could wield mechanical wings and flap around in the sky. Some people tried those things and crushed down pretty badly... just like this fscking processor that's yet another extension to sux86!
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
> cheaper/faster/lower power/easier to write software for
Which the itanic is NOT.
It goes on to point out that AMD has filed more patents in the last 3 years than Intel
number of patents filed does not equate to level of innovation.
How many of them were "sideways swing" type patents?
sheesh, this is slashdot, you'd think we could at least agree on that.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
> The engineer in me doesn't like x86 because it's kludgy, and overly complex (has 4 operating modes of which most folks use 2, for example). Intel and AMD have to waste a lot of silicon that translates x86 instructions into their internal instructions. Seems like it's about time to start using something modern, not built on a legacy ISA.
Yes, but x86 is practical.
> Admittedly, I haven't done too much assembly work. Perhaps x86 is great. But most of the reading I've done and the system architechture classes I've taken lead me to believe that x86 is just a little too dated.
Working with x86-asm is horrible!
...Is to convince another monopoly to 'convince' them (for the slow thinkers here I'm referring to microsoft 'convincing' intel to go with AMD's standard.)
PS Nice to see that slashdot's subscription service is screwed up, NOT a good way to do business. Thats why I'm AC.
This looks like a good thing for open source software / free software.
When 64bit x86-type chips are common, there is going to be a huge confusion in the Windows world.
"Is this application / that application / this doodad ported to the 64bit arch yet? no? Well we can't move over yet, the performance will suck."
"Why is your department still running on 32bit machines?"
"Because there isn't a new version of legacy application xyz..."
I can just see the massive muddle with windows admins. Whereas, a program with source available, simply recompile. Simple. Should work in most cases."
Of course, this may all become irrelevant if the 32bit backwards compatibility of x86-64 is any good.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Yes, but x86 is practical.
So is driving your 20 year-old Pinto because you don't want to pay for a new car. Cars have since improved, and if you can afford a better car, then you'd probably get one.
Working with x86-asm is horrible!
My point exactly. Intel put a lot of work into IA-64 to make it superior to what's currently available. Definitely better than x86. That's why I hope that x86 eventually gets canned. If x86-64 takes off as the next "standard", then we'll be stuck writing crappy x86 for another 10 or 15 years.
Is it posible to drop the 16 bit and lower, and only have the 32 bit with the new 64 bit?
Oh, and what happens with the bios/cmos and all that, those are all 8 bit arn't they?
I admit I haven;t read up, but I have always wondered about why not just dropping the older stuff and keep maybe 1 or 2 generations of this crap to lesson the lead while making it easier for people with backward compatiabilty.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
What is bad with dear Itanium? It got better name?
the 64bit pci slots.
jeebuz they are huge. and all because of backwards compatibility...
So big bad Intel is going to face even more competition. Boo Hoo. Competition is good. My only concern in all this is that AMD being in bed with M$ will mean they won't be as inclined to say.. help tweak gcc for their new architecture. Intel would be smart to fully embrace the Open Source community at this time.
You have not actually looked at the extension have you? They've actually *CLEANED UP* the instruction set by removing numerous esoteric old instructions that nobody needs to use any more, and re-invests the opcode space into larger register indexing.
Its better -- its better in every way to the previous x86 instruction sets.
Well, it looks like Wintel is no longer sufficient to describe the hardware/software monopoly. With MS throwing their support behind AMD we need a new moniker for the combo. I vote AMDows.....any other suggestions?
"The idea behind Opteron is to build off of the Latin root optimus meaning best or if you play with the translation a bit you get optimal unit or flagship." Wrong root, guys. Here's a quiz. What are the following? Isoptera, Orthoptera, Hemoptera, Heteroptera, Homoptera, Neuroptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, Ephemeroptera, Mecoptera, Trichoptera, Diptera, Siphonaptera, Thysanoptera, Paleoptera, Strepsiptera Answer: They are kinds of bugs. Yeah, "Opteron" is a GREAT name for something computer-related.
But microsoft can't compete with AMD. It would take them too long to spin up, and they don't know shit about that industry. AMD, on the other hand, could EASILY compete with microsoft, by the simple expedient of hiring some programmers to work on linux, or some other open source operating system. I just used linux as my example to yank your chain. They contribute code, gain cred, and make a whole bunch of crap work beautifully with their equipment.
Won't happen though, because business as usual is good for everybody - Well, if everybody's a big company. It sucks for us, good thing competition isn't going to go away any time too soon. Even if AMD or intel went under, there would still be other CPUs in the world. But anyway, intel and AMD could conceivably swap places - over time, and they are getting closer, you must admit - but it would just end up being AMD vs. intel with AMD in the position of power. We can play musical chairs, but the tune stays the same.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Intel wasn't ''convinced'' to switch, they've been planning it. It's public knowledge that they probably had a team of engineers working on building their own implementation of x86-64 for quite some time now.
All circuits busy.
To continue your analogy, Ford kept modifying the Pinto design and currently sells it as the Mustang. Sure the Pinto sucks, but wouldn't you get the chicks in a 2002 V8 Mustang convertable?
You know, no matter how fat they get the processors or how wide the bus gets, Windows is still going to act like a punch-drunk sow on valium. I slap the Os on a P166 and on a p4-2.2g and boot them - I still have time to get coffee before they're finished booting. What's the point?
LAHF = Load AH with flags
The LAHF instruction loads some of the condition flags into the AH register. The bit positions emulate the flags register of the 8008 processor so LAHF+PUSH AX is equivalent to PUSH A. This instruction was designed to support automatic translation of 8085 code to 8086.
All x86 processors still support this instruction (yes, that includes your latest Pentium)
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
vs. the devil you don't?
This is sort of what is happening with x86. x86 is a VERY well known entity. All it's ins and outs have been thoroughly explored a thousand times over. If you want to replace it, you should do so with something that you KNOW will be better in every way. IA-64 is almost certainly not it. Actually there are a LOT of people saying that IA-64 sucks worse then x86, and it's starting from scratch. Ditching x86 for IA-64 would be ditching the 20 years of work that hundreds of people have spent getting x86 to be the one of the fastest architectures on the planet (like it or not, right now the IBM Power4 is the ONLY chip out there with more raw processing power then an AthlonXP or P4).
Besides, the weaknesses of x86 have been known for ages and are slowly being worked around. Think SSE/SSEII/3Dnow! to replace that ridiculous stack-based floating point unit? And now with x86-64, not only is AMD extending the architecture to 64-bits, but they're also doubling the number of general purpose registers that can be used, thereby reducing another major weaknesses in x86. So what are we left with? An architecture that has TONS of funding and support, more then 10x as much software as the next closest competitor, compilers that have been optimized VERY well optimized, and to top it off, you can still run 20 year old applications on the thing if you so desire.
And you want to replace this beast? You better have a REAL good alternative lined up! IA-64 just isn't going to cut it!
After comparing the IA64 to x86-64, it is pretty obvious that IA64 is the superior architecture. Intel actually has a pretty damn good design on their hands, where as AMD is still sticking to the dying, x86 ISA.
Increasing register size/number thereof is NOT the answer. Intels idea of packing multiple instructions into a block is excellent. Predictive instructions? Not in x86-64.
I agree that Intel might be a "big bully," and AMD CPUs certainly perform on par, if not better than Intels, but it REALLY is time for a new architecture.
Yeah, they exist, and one of the OS's that run on them is IBM's K42, which I think p3d0 has heard of. Right now most of the RISC architectures are clearly superior, PPC and Alpha in particular, but in the future who knows. IA64 is a huge question mark; in a generation or two it could turn out to be a really good thing, particularly if those compiler blokes can get their act together on it.
If I've understood it correctly: IA-64 and x86-64 are not binary compatible.
.NET and compiled down to IL-code should run equally well on both platforms.
If so, then I'm not at all surprised that M$ has decided to create its own version of windows for x86-64.
Programs written in
It would seems that it was a good idea to rip off javas "compile-once-run-everywhere" technology, M$!
{Ø}
Pentium III Tualatins are just wonderful as you can actually build a silent machine with them. The worst noisemaker in a workstation PC these days is the CPU fan. This is because a CPU like Athlon XP 2000+ (70 W!!) requires an industrial grade fan to keep it cool. Tualatins (1133 MHz) on the other hand are rated approximately at 30 W. All you need is a large heatsink and a flimsy, completely silent fan to keep the CPU at 30 degrees C even when running something like Seti. I bet the CPU would almost work with passive cooling only.
I'm really hoping that the mobile Athlon line, which has similar power ratings, will get motherboard support soon. Otherwise I will start using Intel CPUs permanently.
The owls are not what they seem
Don't get me wrong- I have an AMD myself and I am quite satisfied with it (though they just could produce a little less heat). ;) decoding what they're supposed to do!
But what I'm afraid of is the way the 64bit-extensions seem to be done: The same way 32bit-extensions came to the x86 architecture - using special opcode/address bytes, nested addressing and such. Anyone who ever implemented an emulator for the x86-Architecture knows what a pain in the ass this is -_-.
I'd really wish for a clean cut: Throw out that old garbage and give me registers, all opcodes should have the same length, a standard address size... If we're going to be extending our old architectures like this forever, we'll finally end up with CPUs spending 80% of their time (OK, maybe a bit less
Now, if I mistook AMDs approach somehow and they found some really great way to keep this backward compatibility without all the crap I mentioned above, I'll take everything back - but that would be just too good to be true...
He said CHEVETTE, not CORVETTE. Learn to read and stop bragging about your penis extension.
Don't you think something like "Glorious War Hammer of Alacrity" would be preferable to the tragically generic "Opteron?"
One of the bugs I found in Absoft's compiler came when I made an array too large: in a derived type in a copiler of Cray lineage, the resulting array is bit-addressed. I had the physical memory for the array I needed, but couldn't adress it in 32 bits . .
hawk, who had more memory than any of absoft's test machines at the time
hawk
I see a lot of postings here complaining that it is simply a hack on the old x86 architecture. However, history shows that it really has to be this way to succeed.
Many people will remember when the Alpha and PowerPC were released (at roughly the same time). Both offered a clean new architecture and both could emulate x86 legacy code. Indeed, Windows was also ported to both of these architectures, and yet they still failed to make a dent in the x86 userbase! There are various reasons for this (e.g. high costs, the PREP/CHRP fiaso, lack of native apps, and more) but primarily the "buyer in the street" is not willing to give up any x86 performance regardless of how clean they are told that the underlying architecture.
Therefore, it seems that the only way to succeed is to offer fast native execution of x86 code while providing something new. Initially I was scheptical of the AMD approach, but they have addressed the two main problems with the x86 architecture (lack of registers and 2-bit limitations) yet retained full (and native) backward compatibility and performance.
More likely 'cause MS are the proven abusers of a monopoly position. Each of the others are big players but none have the power of Microsft (who are the only people I can think of that they gang up on!).
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
A pity no one is showing much interest in the x86-64 port over at FreeBSD. IA-64 is in good shape though. Just how backwards compatible is Hammer? Does that hamper it with overly-complex instruction sets and bottlenecks at all?
Point is IA-64 is so different Microsoft might as well go PowerPC/Alpha - they did try that out and it didn't pay off. IA-64 isn't really superior to those, and for practical purposes it isn't better than x86 either.
:) ). AFAIK asm coders write a bit of crappy x86 to switch to the less crappy x86 :). The new x86-64 stuff allow even nicer behaviour. If things go well, the old x86 codes will be vestigial stuff. Evolutionary.
Personally I think x86-64 is the way to go. x86 has improved slightly over the years - the 32 bit stuff isn't as terrible (not great but, erm ok not terrible
Microsoft is good at knowing what people want and what they will put up with.
Cheerio,
Link.