Slashdot Mirror
AMD's 64-Bit Chip
EyesWideOpen writes "AMD is set to release a 64-bit chip early next year which will be completely backwards compatible with the Athlon line. The current 64-bit offering from Intel, Itanium, is an entirely new chip that has no backwards compatibility with its x86 line of chips (from the 8080 chip to the Pentium IV) and is designed only for high end servers. AMD's solution to this problem is the Opteron chip (product info) which will be in servers, desktops and laptops. Here is a wired article."
I've seen duplicate stories, but this beats them all! :)
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
I believe this story is at least a year or two old
With Intel, you are basically buying a name. I've found AMD processors to be more reliable. With backwards compatibility, this will make powerful 64 bit apprications available to the general public, and the server industry will have a boom. AMD has finally surpassed Intel.
We're Doomed
Slow day, huh?
Pedro Côrte-Real.
Dismiss this as karma whoring all you want, but I'm still going to state that I'm completely in favor of the whole backwards-compatible thing. From the PS2 to the new AMD chips, this is a trend that hopefully catches on. What's the point of making something that is unsupported by a large chunk of today's software unless it's to make obscene amounts of money. . .er, nevermind. I think I answered my own question. You can all go back to your day now
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
Ever since Intel released that the "next" processor would be incompatiable with the x86, I've been waiting for AMD to pick it up. A 64-bit x86 is just what the doctor ordered; easy to port too, and runs all of your old software to boot at a decent speed.
The Wired article was not bad (except for the typo about 1995 being the release of the 386 instead of 1985). And it's very true, would YOU expect your DVD player NOT to play your CDs? Not me.
BWP
Running programs in a hybrid 32/16 bit environment puts a serious strain on the Windows OS: It crashes. Pure systems do not crash as often. I really wonder if the problem will be magnified in a 32/64 bit environment?
We're Doomed
Interesting how Intel is the one breaking backwards compatibility, and AMD is keeping it in their chips. Intel, who historically have favored compatibility over moving forward with radical new technology. And AMD, who recently have been the underdogs with more innovative, higher-performing chips.
I'll bet everyone here is going to be singing the praises of AMD for making their 64-bit chip backwards compatible with x86. The very same people who have been spending the past several years decrying the evil of Intel for maintaining compatibility to such an outdated architecture.
Interesting eh?
Ford Motor Co. is set to release today a new car, the Model "A", based on the award winning and famously popular Model "T". The new Model "A" is backwards compatible with all previous 4 wheel gasoline powered Model "T" cars produced by Ford and its competitors, and can run on the same roads as them.
Infuriate left and right
Unfortunately, AMD may make great chips but I really don't see anything out there from the big/stable/well-tested motherboard makers that would make me want to use any AMD technology in a mission critical system. Case in point, I have a dual-proc P3-500 running Linux that has an uptime of 342 days. It runs on my internal network as a print/file/app server for a windows network. I tried running an Athlon system but it would randomly lock up once ever 120-145 hours. We finally traced the problem to a manufacturing defect in a whole batch of motherboards. I ended up replacing the motherboard and now it runs as a windows system in one of the kids rooms since it doesn't need long up times. AMD has to get the chipsets working in a stable fashion such that they can be trust for "real work"(tm).
Do we have to go through the whole "64 -bit code is twice as big as 32-bit code" bloatware excuse again?
Both the Itanium and the Itanium 2 will run x86 code. For details see: http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/files/unprotected/i tanium2.pdf
fix story subject
I've been waiting for these bad mama jamas. I must have spent a week trying to install OS X on my Athlon XP. I couldn't believe how rude the tech support at Apple was, even though I tried to switch. I thought that Quartz would make the windows framing my porn look pretty, but I haven't had a chance to see. I hope this 64 bit CPUs change all that. I used to write 64 bit assembler programs all the time, but they never compiled and linked right. I blame the makers of GeOS, that had to have been the worst IDE I've ever seen for ASM.
This article is WRONG. Itanium *IS* backwards compatible with x86 code. It is just not native code, therefore it is slower. But it runs 32-bit versions of Windows and Linux JUST FINE.
I believe this article is pure FUD in favor of AMD. Please update the news story.
I'll definitely go for this. So long as Zalman is already in the works to making big enough Heatsink/Fan. This might be the first chip that recommends liquid cooling of somesort.
If you think
Well, I suppose your reaction to this depends on your personal product loyalty (or possibly lack thereof). Basically, a CPU will inherently run slower if it is backwards compatible with a completely different architecture. What AMD needs is a chip that solely does 64-bit ops, like the Itanium. Now, I realize that this would require all programs to be recompiled/rewritten, but isn't that what PDA's require anyways? And I'm sure the conversion from 32-bit to 64-bit is a lot easier than 32-bit to Async (could someone familiar with that process verify/refute this?).
This is, in essence, what I'm saying: AMD should come out with 2 64-bit processors, only one of which natively supports 32-bit apps. Why? Otherwise Intel will absolutely rip AMD to shreds in the benchmarks test. Being a loyal AMD user, I don't want to see this.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
With an opteron running a 32 bit app is that app limited to a 4gb limit, or can it address above 4gb? If it can then the opteron is immediately useful, as one wouldn't have to wait for 64 bit versions of photoshop, maya, xsi, etc to reap some benefits. The same can't be said for the itanium, as it would be running all the apps through a slow and flaky emulator.
...it'll be about a year past the release date of these chips that I may be able to afford to upgrade what I need to use them with all their 'Greatness'(tm) . Witnesses on scene reported that two years might be a better estimate...
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
SONY. Because caucasians are just too damn tall.
I wonder if MS is going to include AMD 64 bit extensions into Win2K or XP. We already know that Linux will before the new AMD is even released.
If you remember, MS jumped through hoops to include Intel MMX support.
For a change I would like to see Intel make chip designs to be compatible with AMD innovations.
I want one, I want one, I want one.
IANAL, but imagine a beowulf cluster of in Soviet Russia all your belong are base to us welcoming the new SCO overlords.
x86 code can run on an Itanium processor but it is non-native so it runs slower. AMD got Microsoft support and now we see the same tactics of FUD! Lets move forward to a new architecture rather than living in the past with x86. X-Scale here we come!!!! =)
AMD has the right idea. Extend the old CISC instruction set even if it is a bad design. People have too much money invested in software to throw it away for new "Itanium-optimized" versions (assuming they're available).
If Windows runs on Itanium and not on AMD, that's the end of AMD.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
people complain about slashdot rerunning stories. have you looked in the newpaper recently? There are full of repetitions and dupilicates, sometimes much more frequently. How many times have you seen violence in the middle east or northern ireland? How many times can you read about some crappy Martin Lawrence movie? All the slashdot editors are doing is trying to keep up with the newspapers.
"AMD Reigns Supreme"??? Ha! I spit on your AMD!
Well, ok, to be honest I haven't got anything against AMD. They're better than Intel at any rate, and they make nice little chips for the home.
But the simple truth is: anyone who really needs the power of a 64 bit desktop is already happily using a Sun workstation.
Troll-- AMD may have been the king of roast in the past. Too bad the PIV chips now run the hottest.
...considered part of the x86 family? The first processor in that lineup is the 8086. I think the 8086 might've been source-code-compatible (to some extent) with the 8080, but you can't take an 8080 binary and run it on any x86 processor (emulation doesn't count).
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
there's real mode, 16-bit protected mode segments, 32-bit protected mode segments, V86-mode, is there a 32-bit real mode?... is that what unreal mode is... and what are virtual machine hooks?
While the first 32-bit processor came out in 1995, the average PC used 1 MB of memory, so 4 GB was both unaffordable and generally not needed. But the recent advent of Windows XP and digital media has changed all of that.
The Mac shows how a great system with all the best features can not be worth a damn if they don't have the products to back it up. Think of the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, of small 32 bit programs are out on download.com right now. You can't use one of them on the itaniam. No kazaa, no winamp, no aim, no small shareware/freeware apps, and no GAMES!!! If Intel thinks they are going to get a desktop switch over to 64 bit in the next two years b/c they have a faster chip then they must have accidently hired some old Apple employees.
:)
And I have no clue if the mac OS is more stable, faster, etc. But I'm just going from what mac people tell me
I assume that also means electrically compatable? If not I wouldn't say fully.
The Hammers have three modes of operation:
;-)
1) 32-bit based. Run all your 32-bit apps on a 32-bit program. In 5 years, you get to look retro.
2) 32-64-bit hybrid. Run a 64-bit OS with a mix of 32 and 64 bit apps. Or all of one or the other. In 5 years, you get to look like a geek when you're running all the "old-skool" 32-bit programs that were never ported to 64-bit, and you're running them without an emulator! (you w00t 1337 dewd)
3) 64-bit only. Run a 64-bit OS with 64-bit apps only. In 5 years, look like everyone else
neye
In other news... Pentium IV processors can now use DDR memory, you can now get dual-processor Athlons systems, and the Intel Pentium-3 processor has new instructions that will allow it to "revolutionize your internet experience" dubbed "SSE"
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
I've always liked AMD's chips and have had the best lucky with them. Infact, my school's finally upgrading a few boxes with AMD 1600XP's, ANYWAY, not the point of my comment. My comment is this: Ever since I saw the Hammer/Opteron chip, when they FIRST introduced the idea, I drooled over it. I can see the advanages of a back. compat. chip for x86 along with running 64 bit stuff, but I can also see a chip from AMD that JUST does 64-bit.
/. earlier). With the last, I think if they did that, they would totaly blow intel right out of the water.
ANYWAY.... What I would LOVE to see from AMD, is to take their Hammer design, and run with it. Meaning, if possible, move more onto the chip (e.g north bridge) this way you can just pop a new chip in, and you almost have a new motherboard, ALMOST. Also, I would like to see them combine the Hammer design with Clockless Tech (discussed here on
Considering my desktop is a Emachine Celery 400, and my laptop is a old IBM Thinkpad 600, at 266, I would LOVE to have a laptop AND a desktop with this chip, that would truely be AWESOME!
Athlon got me to switch to AMD for awhile, a short while. They never worked out their heat concerns. Now with 64-bit Intel is evolving past its mistakes and moving forward. AMD with it 64-bit is try to drag those same mistake into the future. At some point you have to leave the past to the past. CP/M. DOS, OS/2, Windows. or better yet 8080, Z80, 6502, 68000, 8088, 286...
The only time I've seen a successful migration from one platform to another was when Apple managed to migrate from 68K up to PowerPC, and that was only really possible because they controlled both the hardware and the software.
they were also successful because in part so many developers spent a lot of time making fat binaries that would run on either 68K or PPC platforms. The developers made things backwards and forwards compatible at the same time in one package.
neye
A properly designed 64-bit CPU does not need to 'run slower' to run 32-bit apps. AMD came up with a simple solution to the 32-bit limitations of X86 code: they added a new 'mode' to the processor to run 64-bit binaries. when this mode bit is set (similar to the old Real and and Protected modes of X86 chips), the chip utilizies the full 64-bit-wide pathways for data and cacluations, when this bit is not set, only the lower (or is it upper? AMD isn't saying...) 32-bits of the pathways are used. The same exact logic units are used for all 32-bit and 64-bit calculations, only the bit-depth precision changes. Thus if it takes an ADD instruction 16 cycles to add two registers and store the results in a third register, it takes 16 cycles reguardless fo whcih mode the processor is in. Of course, AMD also added an extra 8 registers for use in 64-bit mode... very useful.
The itantium does not get the majority of it's speed from being 64-bit - this is a common mistake people make. It has a _very_ different design and instruction set - EPIC - which places the burden of parallel instruction determiniation on the compiler. Basicly, they used the oldest software refactoring trick in the book, but on the whole processor design: they examined the amount of time spent executing, and looked for the bigest runtime performance-hit that could be moved from a O(n) to a O(1) penalty by simply moving the calculation. In this case, modern processors spend a great deal of time trying to handle multiple instructions at once, which may or may not be parralellizable (is that a word?) - thus the processor has to figure out, on the fly (in a P4, for example), if it can execute the next four add instructions in parallel, or if they are interdependant and cannot... By placing the burden of parellelism determination and instruction scheduling on the compiler, intel made the compiler writer's job much harder, but at the benefit of increased performance.
Oh, and most PDA processors are much more traditional, and thus don't require complex compilers like the itanium, so actually porting a compiler (or an assembly-lang app) to a PDA from x86(32-bit) is easier than creating one for the EPIC architecture.
And yes, I know the above is an oversimplification, and Intel and AMD both did a lot more, in a lot more detail, on thier 64-bit chips.
Oh, and I think the next few iterations of itaniums _will_ beat the AMD 64-bit chip on bechmarks. But not by a landslide.... And with the differences in price (EPIC chips are Expensive... capital E) the AMD chips will win the hearts of many and be the performance-price ratio king. And who wants to pay 3 times as much for 20% more performance?
man is machine
You know what would be a cool thing to do with a 64-bit chip that supports the i386 instruction set? Run one 32-bit OS (e.g., Windows) in the lower half and another one (Linux!) in the upper half.
Whole new meaning to the term "dual boot," and you can move things between address spaces with simple bit shifts!
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Leaded gasoline was only developed in the 1930's, IIRC...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Man... I have owned 3 AMD XP boards. Each one has some random instability problems, compared to my celery system i was running 2 years ago. Once I get a chance, I am going to pickup a stable 2.4 p4, without all that extra heat
The current 64-bit offering from Intel, Itanium, is an entirely new chip that has no backwards compatibility with it's x86 line of chips
The current Itanium chips are compatible with the x86 instruction set. Intel even applied for patents on the compatibility technology, reported on Slashdot quite a while ago. It's real hardware, not emulation. The compatible portion of the chip is known as the "Intel Value Engine", acknowledging the "value" of being able to run x86 code.
The catch is that it is just compatible with the 32-bit x86 instruction set, and it isn't going to be faster than a top-of-the-line x86 processor. The x86 instructions in Itanium are not enhanced to 64 bits like in the AMD chip. If you want top speed on Itanium you have to go to the IA-64 instructions.
Another catch is that the OS has to support the ability to map a process to run in the x86 hardware mode, and the OS has to communicate with the x86 processes. Some OSes running on Itanium won't bother supporting that mode.
With the AMD chip you get native x86 compatibility, 64-bit data wrangling, and it runs competitively with other x86 chips. Sounds like a good story, giving an evolutionary path for legacy applications. Will AMD deliver? Will Intel bring out Yamhill to snuff AMD? Stay tuned.
my 800 MHz AMD is still doing the job. I don't really need a 64 bit chip until 00:00:00 UTC, January 1, 2038.
nahhh, gotta be a coincidence.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
AMD is really going try stop the bleeding against Intel with Hammer. AMD's chip will actually be "different" than Intel and not considered a clone, considering its architecture.
There are a few things going for AMD, so lets sum it up:
1. Backwards compatibility. This chip has optimizations for 32 bit, along with 64 bit extensions. You want faster Gentoo, 32-bit compiles? This chip will run them. Once you're done with that as your base kernel, recompile with 64 bit extensions and now your 64-bit encoders are going to get a series bump.
2. Possiblity of Sun and Apple alliance. AMD has SO wanted to get in bed with a tier 1 company that delivers SO many systems. Getting in bed with Sun and Apple will simply get their chip out to the masses and get that brand name support that Intel already has.
(as much as people here may hate this)
3. Microsoft's blessing. Sure, linux users don't care, but when corporations, that don't run AMD chips see the latest chip from AMD is Microsoft certified, that's a series boost for confidence.
How does this pan out for the rest of the desktop users? AMD's Hammer, if priced accordingly, will become our desktop replacements AND will start the transition to 64-bit OSes and 64-bit applications. Will XMMS benefit from 64bits? Maybe not. Will MySQL get a boost? Sure. These Hammer chips have serious potential for desktop and server use, all in one core. Intel still has the Xeon and P4 line -- they may simply merge the two, for cost cutting reasons.
BUT, we all must remember one thing: No one has been fired for recommending Intel.
Itanium does have backwards compatibility:
Q10. Will Itanium processor-based systems be compatible with IA-32 systems? Will IT be able to effortlessly migrate their systems to Itanium processor-based systems? A10. Optimal performance for Itanium processor-based systems will be achieved with 64-bit software. The Intel Itanium processor supports 32-bit binary compatibility in hardware.
from this link
I honestly think we (the IBM PC users of Earth) should ditch IA-32 and use IA-64 as a stepping stone (future Itaniums will not have the binary compatibilty). The backwards compatibility is killing PC performance. Look at how high an x86 CPU has to be clocked just to achieve equal performance with a RISC computer. And higher clock rates == more heat and more power consumption.
~ SleezyG
"RISC: any computer announced after 1985." -- Steven Przybylski
"64-bit code is twice as big as 32-bit code" bloatware excuse
Unfounded. Though I find Itanium's instruction coding (16 bytes per 3 instructions) bloated, not all high-"bit" machines have to have bloated bytecodes. The ARMv4 architecture, used in processors such as the ARM7TDMI in the Game Boy Advance, has a standard 4-byte-per-instruction encoding, and an optional 2-byte-per-instruction encoding called "Thumb". Thumb code runs at about two-thirds of the speed of ARM code on machines with fast memory because some operations take more instructions on ARM than on Thumb, but Thumb code really shines when running on small or slow memory and can help drain less battery power on mobile machines. Apps will often have most of the app in Thumb but some of the time-critical inner loops in ARM.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Do you know what GeOS is? It was never used to write 64 bit assembler, I can tell you that much.
You're another Mac faggot that can't read between the lines ( which is why you own a Mac ). In case you own something else, you're a lunix faggot, you're a win32 faggot, you're a OS/2 faggot, you're a BSD faggot, etc.
You base your processor choice on one incident? That doesn't seem like a very scientifically sound method of doing things. I've never had a problem with the AMDs I've used. All my problems have been on Intel machines. But my point is just as irrelevent as yours. Luck of the draw I suppose. Plenty of well-respected motherboard manufacturers make good boards for AMDs: Abit, Asus, Tyan, etc.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
It is just not native code, therefore it is slower. But it runs 32-bit versions of Windows and Linux JUST FINE.
Except the FUDsters are right this time, as software written for x86 doesn't run on Itanium. Rather, it crawls on Itanium. The difference is most noticeable in soft-real-time applications such as video games.
Intel could have done the x86 emulation much more efficiently; read my other comment. Efficient recompilation in silicon is the approach AMD has used since the K5 processor and perfected in the Athlon product line.
Will I retire or break 10K?
In the past Fall and Spring semesters, I workded on an independant study project studying the x86-64 and Itanium architectures. Saying that Itanum has no x86 compatibility is ridiculous. It isn't as goot as AMD's compatibility, but it is there, though likely slower.
t'nera semordnilap
With an opteron running a 32 bit app is that app limited to a 4gb limit, or can it address above 4gb?
Depends on the operating system. Some kernels support allocation of memory through "far pointers" that refer to a "segment" of large memory, then a smaller offset within that segment. The Windows/286 operating system, versions 2.03 through 3.1, used far pointers as the common memory allocation type because the 286 limited offsets to 64 KB. Likewise, with the 4 GB offsets on the 386, 32-bit apps running on a suitable OS will be able to allocate multigigabytes of memory in 4 GB chunks. For instance, non-Celeron PIIs, PIIIs, P4s, and Xeon processors already support up to 64 GB of physical memory, given an appropriate motherboard. I'm not as sure about the Athlon, given that it still uses an older socket.
Will I retire or break 10K?
- "While the first 32-bit processor came out in 1995, the average PC used 1 MB of memory, so 4 GB was both unaffordable and generally not needed."
Without digging too deeply, it can be found that Motorola came out with the 68020, a true 32-bit processor, in June of 1984, 11 years prior to the debut of the 32-bit processor according to the nimrod author. I don't have solid dates but I know that within a year of this timeframe Suns and Apollo workstations were using this chip.How disgraceful.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
The Itanium we have takes a ton of power and has 6 fans. How does AMD expect to put their chips into a laptop?
Let's say you have an elaborately-customized server setup. Let's even imagine that some of your storage for both data and programs isn't sitting at a single PC, but is in network-attached storage. Now, you want to upgrade the hardware to 64-bit without having to recompile everything - or maybe just upgrade some of the servers while continue to share program code off the storage.
You get only one answer: AMD. You can take your complexly-configured servers and not have to redo them from scratch. And the hobbiest gains the same advantage - swap drives, compile yourself a 64-bit kernel, and forget about doing a virgin install of Debian 64.
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
This is news?
R oo m/0,,51_104_543~19746,00.html
The Opteron was announced on April 24, 2002:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPress
The "Hammer" processor family (i.e. the Opteron, Clawhammer, and Sledgehammer) has been a topic of informed discussion for at least the last 18 months.
Sure, everyone 15 years ago thought 4 GB of memory would be PLENTY. But how about in another 15 years? Will an exabyte of memory still be able to run the highest end applications including Microsoft Office 2017?
I believe, from most articles I've read, that the AMD Opteron is targetted solely at the server market, similar to Intel's Xeon series of processors. AMD is going to try to remain true to the Athlon name with all its upcoming desktop processors. Personally, I think they will go with "AMD Athlon 64" as the new desktop brand. What's really to wonder about is their model number versus clock speed system. Up until now, they've used a linear equation to relate them:
(1.5*CLOCK)-500=MODEL
or
((2*MODEL)+1000)/3=CLOCK
This is actually contrary to the popular belief that they compare the Athlon XP's model number to the Pentium 4s' or Thunderbirds' performance.
If you want a "fresh" architecture that isn't full of old junk, buy an Alpha. Or for that matter a MIPS, SPARC, or Power4. All of which are 64-bit and have either always been 64-bit, or at least had their original 32-bit designs planned around 64-bit expansions.
Personally, I think it's amazing how much old crap has been piled onto x86. It's really remarkable it runs at all, and it's even fast! I used to turn up my nose to the x86 given how they piled all the 32-bit extensions on the old 16-bit core. It's really a travesty. And the actual instruction set and register set looks like a damn train wreck compared to MIPS or PPC. But they are soooo cheap I eventually got over it, and just try to avoid thinking about any level lower than 'C' now so I don't go insane.
April fools?
Bill (Gates) announced that Microsoft(tm) would support Opteron. Jerry (Sanders) gave nice pro-Microsoft(tm) testimony at the anti-trust trial. Funny how Microsoft(tm) seems to encourage competition in the x86 market. Oh well. I'm not complaining if it keeps AMD and the x86 market viable.
What's stable enough for real work? My Athlon currently shows uptime of 47 days. Interestingly, I upgraded the OS about a month and a half ago. I don't shut down or reboot this machine except to upgrade it; I typically go for a couple of months without even logging out. I don't even quit Emacs every month. Is that what you mean by stable?
I do use this system for what could fairly be called "real work"; I usually use the compute cluster only for jobs that require more than 512 MB or aren't X86 compatible.
Was I in seventh heaven?
I don't know. Were you?
I didn't read the whole story, I just kind of skimmed it. Sorry.
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
Well, in the case I have had to deal with directly, it didn't work. Supermicro motherboards have always been rock solid for me and that is what I want to stick with. Maybe, if I see more of my friends have better experiences with their setups, then I might give AMD another try. Until then, I don't want to spend any more money on AMD.
Sheesh. Can you say "been there, done that"? What was Apple's slogan? Windows95=Mac8x. How about Windows02=Linux9x. (I don't know the exact dates that Apple used in their ad, or when Linux was 64bit)
But I hate it when the media falsely portrays, MS as being this great,innovative company. I know I'm sounding like a stereotypical /. poster, but that attitude just gives me a nasty rash on my left testicle.
This isn't a criticism of MS. This is a criticism of mass media. They have the responsibility to provide correct information to the consumer. Sure Windows is used by 90-something percent of home users, but this is a chicken and egg problem. Are consumers uninformed because mass media does not provide the whole story, or does mass media not provide the whole story since consumers are uninformed?
A quick web search shows Itanium is x86 compatible.
Admittedly, the Itanium does this using emulation, whereas the Opteron is supposed to handle 32-bit instructions natively, however the statement that 32-bit code will not work on Itanium is quite misleading.
The Wired article has other errors as well. A 32-bit CPU isn't limited to 4GB; that confuses address space with physical memory. The definition of exabyte is wrong (1000 petabytes, not 1000 terabytes). The 8080 in 1981? Closer to 1975. And many have mentioned the bogus "no compatibility" claim.
One wonders if the whole thing wasn't a troll.
Just not the way you might think. An Intel Itanium-based computer running Linux64, Win64 (the codename for the 64-bit version of Windows 2000) or Windows XP 64-bit can run x86 (386, Pentium, Pentium Pro, etc) binaries unmodified. It will be significantly SLOWER than an equivalent x86 processor, because it does do it via hardware emulation, but it does do it.
Where the Itanium (and, I'm assuming, the Opteron/64-bit Athlon) really matter is in in large database and high-end workstation solutions. Basically, anything that needs more than 4GB of RAM. In these uses, it's not actually the processor speed that is needed, it's the RAM. The Itanium is meant for servers, yes. That is all the Itanium was designed for.
The cleverly named Itanium-2, however, is a horse of a different color. Not only is it faster (both MHz and IPC,) but it's cheaper, too! (You can get an Itanium-2 based system for about $3000.) The Itanium 2 at 900MHz is about twice as fast as the 'old' Itanium at 800MHz, performance-wise.
The only thing AMD has going for them (literally) is x86 compatibility. If it can run x86 code reasonably fast (i.e., a 1GHz Opteron running Pentium code at least as fast as a Pentium 3 1GHz) then it will be likely to take over the Workstation market from the Itanium 2. Unfortunately, I don't think anything could cause the Opteron to win over Itanium 2 in the high end server market.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
From what I remember, Itanium represents a fundamental change in the way a processor works, and that is why there is no native backward compatibility. Which is good (I think).
The backwards compatibility requirement restricts performence increases. And for those that are running operations systems that are available on many platforms, such as the best OS in the world, what use is x86 compatibility, other than the ability to buy cheap hardware?
Currently, most CPUs fall in to one of two categories: CISC (complex instruction set computer), or RISC (reduced instruction set computer).
Both CISC and RISC processors execute binary code that can be viewed as assembly code (which is really just machine/binary code, but represented in a more human-friendly format).
On a CISC machine, that machine code is furthur decomposed (automatically by the processor) from machine code into microcode operations, which the processor hardware executes. On a RISC system, this microcode layer does not exist; the processor layer just executes the requested operations.
On a CISC system, the instuction set is larger, and some of the instructions may be specialized functions that perform very complicated operations. MMX from Intel (and all the other things like it) is a good example.
Usually, the barrier of granularity that would demark the microcode realm for the assembly/binary/machine code is drawn based on timing issues. Microcode programming requires the code be produced with an eye for allowed timing limits; this means that it is possible to have microcode sequences which will fail to execute because they were traversed in a way that violated timing requirements for the processor. For example, say microcode instruction XYZ uses some circuitry on the processor for 3 internal clock ticks; XYZ is executed at internal-clock-tick=0, and again at internal-clock-tick=2. The both executions will be corrupt, and the reason is timing. (NOTE: I think I even remember seeing a linux driver that allowed you to read your processors microcode)
Well Itanium moves the microcode layer of abstraction into the compiler. In the old days, the human user programmed assembly and could not be trusted to adhere to all the timing restrictions. Since most programming is now done in higher-level languages, the machine-level code is generated by the compiler - and a compiler can be made to adhere to timing requirements.
Itanium is an advancement in processor design, and one worth given up the ability to boot into DOS for.
In 1929 Duesenberg guaranteed their cars to reach at least 120 MPH. They had a 7 liter, DOHC in-line 8, 265 HP engine. Skinny tires, wooden frame, sounds risky. I have seen statistics that over 40% of all Duesenbergs Model J's made, between 1929 and 1937, survive today. No doubt, they were the absolutely best cars ever made.
If your motherboard was designed right, it would notice the overtemperature, react, and shut it down. The real problem is the heatsink falling off- if that happens, your CPU will emit magic smoke faster than the temperature sensor can react.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Gimme a break! The reason has nothing to do with Windows XP. It has to do with databases more than anything. Crikey.
I am sure that Intel is really happy that the chief architect for their partner in their 64-bit efforts is endorsing the competing technology.
Of course, you are not prepared to accept this simple truth. Your mind has been shaped by the religious clergy, in whose best interest the concept of "free will" was created. They can charge more for pardon if you think you are guilty of those natural and inevitable acts which they claim are sinful and you could have avoided.
uh.... no.
Ignoring the two power outages due to lightning storms (destroyed a risc machine), one of my office athlons has been up for ~270 days. This most recent stretch has been 39 days, in large part due to plugging it in to the new UPS.
Another system I was using was up from September 2001 through March 2002. We lost power in the machine room, which has a habit of killing uptimes.
Sorry, if you need a clue on uptime, compare this to my P III based lap top. Cant keep it alive for more than 3 days without a reboot.
The real future lies in the Octium Chip, created by e-com-con
But I don't need to tell you that.
my sig
"While the first 32-bit processor came out in 1995, the average PC used 1 MB of memory, so 4 GB was both unaffordable and generally not needed. But the recent advent of Windows XP and digital media has changed all of that."
It's cars built to run on leaded gas that have trouble running on unleaded, not the other way round. They burn their exhaust valves. Newer cars built for unleaded gas may destroy their catalythic converters if fed leaded gas, but it will not damage the motors.
They fall behind, and they try to keep everyone else there with them. I remember when Intel released the Pentium. AMD pointed out that it was not (yet) as fast as a 486 of the same clock speed. They claimed that the 486 still had a lot of life. No one needed anything faster. They released a lot of inaccurate and misleading benchmarks. They did all of that trademark deceiptful crap because they only had a 486 to offer. As usual AMDroids fell for it. Now AMDroids spread front page lies like "IA-64 is not backward compatible at all" and Microsoft is supporting AMD, but not IA-64". Deja vu. If you want to buy AMD processors go ahead, but why do you feel the need to lie to everyone else, if AMD processors are so superior?
Are there any ports of bochs that pass system calls through to the native system so that none of the actual OS is running inside Bochs? This would allow you to, say, run x86 Linux code on Linux PPC or Win x86 apps on Win ia64. This assumes, of course, that the system call numbers and arguments are the same across architectures. Maybe it would require too much OS-awareness in Bochs in order to fix the endianess, but it would be nice to move away from hardware x86 decoders.
Please someone tell me that all of the 64-bit mode instructions are the same length. (Maybe the caryover instructions from x86 need to be padded with nops.) Varaible-width instructions absoutely kill hardware or software decoding speed, especially if you're trying to parallelize it. Maybe we can all migrate to pure x86-64 instructions and slowly rid ourselves of the old x86 instructions?
Ideally, AMD would come out with a RISC cpu with an open source x86 emulator for the OS vendors to integrate with thier OS. I would love to be able to have comodity RISC or VLIW chips on pricewatch. x86 decoding is a waste of heat and chip realestate.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
I think you are wrong. As I remember, the 8088 was a version of the 8086 with an 8 bit data bus (the 8086 has a 16 bit bus) but was still a 16 bit processor. I also wouldn't say it failed quickly, as it was the basis of the IBM PC. Maybe you're thinking of a different CPU?
imagination is more important than knowledge --Albert Einstein-
As was already mentioned he states that the first 32 bit processor was released in 1995 when in actuality it was a motorola processor in the 1980s.
Immediately after that he states, "(in 1995)...the average PC used 1 MB of memory..." perhaps I'm wrong but any computer I have or remember from that era had more than one meg of memory. For instance, I just dismantled an old 386dx from circa 1992 that was equiped with 4 megs or ram. My girlfriends 486dx has 16 megs. And I have an older pentium 166 non mmx from 1996 that has 32 megs. He also says, "Opteron will be in servers, desktops and laptops."
Again correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Opteron the server version of the Hammer chip. I believe that the desktop version of the Hammer is still codenamed Clawhammer.
I don't know where the hell this author gets his information, but I'd appreciate it if he would pull his head out of his ass before he writes anything else.
1000 terabytes in a petabyte,
1000 gigabytes in a terabyte,
and so on.
Roey.
<zim>EH?</zim>
The Opteron is compatible with all software made since the 8086. Therefore, the Opteron cannot truly be called new technology. It may have evolved in certain ways, but at its core it is no more advanced than the 8086. You can read AMD's whitepaper, and it will confirm: AMD knows that RISC, or specifically VLIW, is faster than CISC, but doesn't want to switch because of the installed base.
Intel, with the Itanium, takes the opposite stance. They know that CISC sucks, and that x86 was doomed from the start. It's not that "new things are better"; VLIW processors could have been developed in 1980, and if they were there would be no need for Itanium. But they didn't. So Intel wants to use 64-bit as an excuse to throw out x86, and start over the way they should have from the beginning.
Let's hope that Intel uses it's 75% marketshare power to win. It'll be unfortunate if AMD does.
Their PA-RISC machines have been pretty popular for things like airline reservation systems and low-end graphics workstations.
They also helped out with Itanium.
Hmm, well they got most of the info right, except the opturon the chip being marketted toward the server market. In fact, that is the second x86-64 chip to come out. and i believe that one is the sledgehammer chip, but that might be the second gen.
The desktop and laptop series will keep the athlon name
I doubt, therefore I might! So my sig sucks, so shoot me!
We're running a Dual AMD system here as a Win2k Domain conroller and it's stable as hell. I'll never have a problem recommending them for mission critical systems.
We don not want an 80x86 compatible chip. It's crap. It's an outdated CISC architecture. Has anybody read the complete white paper on the IA64 chip? Intel may have completely screwed up the implementation, but as specified (by H.P. originally) the chip is kicking ass and taking names.
Some extremely large percent of the silicon (and thus power dissipation and heat generation) on the athlon line is spent on the insanely complex variable length instruction decode needed to break old legacy x86 instructions into smaller pieces to feed to the well designed and powerful execution units.
A well designed RISC with optimization and caching hinds built into the object code will kick the living shit out of a 64 bit CISC hack built on top of an instruction set that was designed to run pocket calculators and automatic washing machines.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
I wonder if Linux 2.6.x is going to be out yet by that time, since the AMD-X86-64 is supported only in the 2.5 tree. I doubt it, because the feature freeze is going to go in on October 31st (correct me if I'm wrong). Who wants to run 32 bit code on this anyways (yes, i know all the Windows users). I wonder if major distributions like redhat, or mandrake, suse, or debian (debian will for sure) will have support for AMD-X86-64. I bet gentoo will be a popular distribution for runing these babies on.
(An exabyte is 1,000 terabytes and a terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes.)
Isn't a 1,000 terabytes a petabyte?
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
The article is new. Might be out-dated, but it is a new article
No, binary compatible is the 8088/8086, the former
8-bit to the mainboard and thus exclusively used in
IBM PC and XT, the latter one year earlier, but with
its 16-bit bus making mainboards twice as expensive.
The 8080 has a different command set, but with some
macroes 8080 assembly source code can be re-compiled.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
Why support AMD when they take advantage of open-source developers to get their product supported while at the same time embed Paladium / DRM garbage in their products which will be used by Microsoft to extinguish Linux?
I will certainly only buy another AMD processor if I hear they are dropping this ridiculous 'feature'.
It is addressing memory concerns with 32 and 64 bit processors. However these are general registers. The address bus actually determines maximum memory limitations. The address bus on the Pentium IV is 36 bits (64GB) where as the athlon (I believe) is 8TB. I expected more out of a wired reporter / cpu symposium rep. How can this entire report be based on erroneous info?
Well I'll buy it if I can still play Wolfenstein 3d and Doom 1/2. Those games stilll get played on my puter, because they are timeless classics.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is probably a stupid question but here goes:
Why can't they just make it completely 64 bit and have another processor handle the 16/32 bit code? That is, turn it into something a native 64 bit chip could handle easily.
Adding another chip to the motherboard is hard, but not if you have it as part of the original spec. The 16/32 chip could be similar to what the math-coprocessor was. The slot was empty unless you needed it. Though it was on the motherboards.
It shouldn't even be that hard. With all the work going into the 64 bit processors, the 16/32 bit coprocessor would need no development, and would be cheap to manufacture once the original design would be out. Of course, such a design would allow future developnment of the same. Should a 128 chip ever come out, the coprocessor could than be 16/32/64.
I still have a 5 1/4 inch floppy drive. Why? At the time I bought it, it was just in case, and it was an open slot in the case. It's there, in rare cases it get used, and it's cheap. I guess I'd like to see a 16/32 chip the same way. (Maybe even throw java onto it).
Now, obviously Intel and AMD have people looking at all the possibilities, so I am under the impression that this idea is not possible/feasible. Why is that?
Have you read my journal today?
Slashdot ran this story About Intel's 64 Bit x86 CPU if the Itanium fails or AMD's 64 bit chip does better.
A little like how Apple included the Classic and then Carbon compatibility level, so that Mac OS X can run old software. It meant that the first day I got the public beta, sure - there were a lot of little unix apps I could run at the command line, and a few little Aqua apps, but the majority of software I ran was through Classic.
As time has progressed (about 17 months later) there are plenty of Carbon and Aqua apps so that I almost never launch classic anymore.
- passion
This may be nonsense since I don't claim to fully understand how 32bit and 64bit differ at the application level, but here's my guess at the reasoning from a marketing standpoint:
Pure 64bit with no backward-compatibility -- this CPU is intended for dedicated software that's designed for 64bit from the ground up. I'd expect this to be aimed at primarily at the server and database market, where new apps are likely to be written simply because the old ones no longer handle the load -- while you're at it, might as well design 'em as pure 64bit from the gitgo and ditch the compatibility kludges. This CPU is likely to be a higher price bracket since the target audience is essentially the enterprise market.
64bit with 32bit compatibility -- that's for 32bit software that is already overstressing 32bit's 4gig memory-addressing limit. I'd expect this CPU to be aimed primarily at the CAD and video graphics market, where existing apps are likely to remain in primary use for some time (because they still do the job and are too expensive for their current market to replace). This CPU is likely to inhabit a lower price bracket since the target audience is independent designers, small studios, and the like.
IOW, it looks to me like AMD and Intel are courting two completely different and separate markets.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Was it based on a Via Chipset (with a 686B bus?) If it is, then it has what some people call the 686B Bug, which can be easily fixed if you get the newest 4in1 drivers from via.
Thank you©© That© was ¥ very helpful¥©
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
1) Lack of a thermal diode. The CPU will burn up easily if the heat sink falls off, even partially.
2) Cheaper packaging (this has to do with the construction of the cpu)
3) Cheaper motherboards. A bad motherboard is a bad investment, no matter how low the cost is. Don't buy a Via.
None of this should prevent people from buying AMD, but it is something to think about.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
Have an "old style" chip and a new-style chip. Big apps then use the 64-bit chip and the old one's use the 32-bit chip.
Table-ized A.I.
actually if you werent such a Intel fanboy, you would know that Athlons do have a thermal diode since the XP's came out last year, the chip packaging is the same as the p4(except no heat spreader) and my $50 FIC motherboard with the VIA KT266A chipset hasnt failed me ever.
Are you serious? You cannot possibly be that stupid.
You traced the problem to a motherboard and close by blaming AMD for their processor, which was (according to you) not the cause of the crashes.
please ignore... testing out posting problems :-\
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Intel made its chips backwards compatible.
Not like Alpha being compatible via FX32 (software emultion), Intel has full hardware support.
DEC controlled the whole system, the add in cards, the OS. They could get away with FX32.
Intel just makes chips. This will allow them to execute x86 compiled drivers, x86 applications, etc without having to get every single OS on the market to support it. Sure they could throw some engineers at MS and help them make a FX32 system for IA64, but what about GNU/Linux and BSD? They'd need to comply with the GPL for GNU/Linux support, which would piss MS off, or just have only Windows be backwards compatible, which wouldn't be good for them either.
This way works great for them. All they had to do was build an x86 decoder onto the chip and reuse the FPU, integer units, etc off the regular chip. Obviously without any OOOE logic its not going to do any better than a high MHz Pentium, but you don't buy an Itanium for high speed 32bit execution, you buy it for high speed 64bit execution of programs using over 4gigs of address space and the convience of being able to use MS Office on the same machine.
I can't wait until the Voodoo3 is announced! Damn, that chip is gonna be sweet!
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Met with some folks at AMD a few weeks ago, so maybe I can contribute here:
It does have a IHS (Integrated heat spreader) so you will not chip cores!
It still runs damn hot though.
It is HEAVY. I mean physically heavy. I don't know why.
Current Opteron chips (the Clawhammer) are running at 800-900MHz, and have a very high number of IPCs (instructions per clock cycle) so they perform very well.
They will ship at relatively low clock speeds, but perform equivlently to AthlonXPs or Pentium 4s clocked much higher.
The first of the series will likely either be called the Opteron 3000+.
reflect the fact that the Itanium is a piece of crap.
It's too expensive a solution. There are better solutions, since they are not powerful enough to warrent the extra cost over a normal x86 server and cannot approach the power/flexibility of a multi proc server from Sun/IBM.
It's just a bad decision from a money perspective.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of whatever this story is about!
I never thought I'd live to see the day that I read a funny "imagine a Beowulf cluster" -joke.
Note to all posters: This doesn't mean your beowulf cluster joke if funny. To be on the safe side, never post one.
The best thing about the Itanium is that not only can you run your x86 binaries really slowly, you can also run all those PA-RISC binaries you have laying around really slowly, too. How helpful!
I'm just being annoying here. No disrespect to any PA-RISC users intended at all. I quite like the PA-RISC architechture, and the workstations built with it are top of the line equipment, at least in my experience.
PA-RISC Powered, Baby! Hell, yeah!
Sorry.
-Lawrence
Visit Zymurgy Records!
believe me, i am no amd weenie. ;)
and i have moderator points, that i could have used on that post, but decided to reply instead.
that post was(is?) flamebaitish, the guy just spewed a bunch of stuff he admitted he had no evidence for. especially that part about amd having more performance...sheesh..
thier are times when being a mac user makes me want to die laughing, the intel world is just NOW getting 64 bit computing? What next they get get a powerbutton onthe computer? A mouse? ooh I know next we'll get a GPU MPU? holy fuck.
Anyone who really needs the power of a 32 bit desktop was already happily using a VAX workstation 15 years ago.
Best Slashdot comment ever
All I know is the Civ3 with a hugh map on an AMD 2100+ w/512 DDR crawls. I would be really happy for any CPU that can make a turn at the tail end of the game (4 players, 300+ cities, 1000's of units) take less then the 10 mins. it takes to churn thru now! Who give a damn about datebases, or weather sims, or data, et. al. - make my game run faster! (Note: This is scarcasim.)
so the next version of Windows will be "Windows 64", the next Office "Office 64", and word "word 64"
I am not sure where you get this information from, or why not the editors have not checked this statement. The IA64 platfrom supports IA32 code. Read Intel Itanium Architecture Software Developer's Manual Vol. 2 rev. 2.0: System Architecture Part II chapter 9 entitled IA32 Application Support
Support by the operating system is needed, something that already has been built into the Linux kernel. I recomend reading Chapter 11 in IA64 Linux Kernel - design and implementation. IA32 programs will think they are running on a Pentium III computer.
The recomendation is to not run IA32 programs on IA64, but to recompile them for the new architechture... but that is kind of obvious..
With Moore's Law doubling performance every 18 months...
;9
This shows how little the author knows about the subject, the rest af the article looks like rewrite and tidbits from other articles.
On the other hand, did he mean that Moore's Law increases the performance of the chips? Then one is left wondering what research and engineers are for...
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Don't buy a Via.
Yeah, get some quality AMD in there! Or hey, if you want real performance, buy SiS!
Yes I am being sarcastic. Via is the best out of the three. These days, however, buy nVidia!
Sun has been producing a VLIW processor as well,called MAJC (pronounced "magic"), since 1999. Look here
Stick Men
Yet the Alpha seems to be forced into complete non-relevance by the mass media. (Witness the Wired article, where it's not even mentioned.) Is the Alpha really that irrelevant? Is the experience gained (both technically *and* marketing-wise) to be tossed and never thought of again?
It's a bit older than some of the other RISC designs, but it is rather cool and cheap and used in an awful lot of places (e.g. GBA).
Actually, the Athlons do have a thermal diode, just like the Intel chips. It's only that older motherboards dont use the cpu thermal diode, but use their own external one instead. And that one cant react fast enough to a heatsink removal. It will react to fan failure tho.
If you get a motherboard that does use the internal one you dont have a problem.
Of course... I cant say I find it likely that a heatsink would fall off. You'd have to drop the box from a pretty fair height to manage that.
When is it time for us to move on from such an old architecture? Surely there is some luggage in there we can now do away with?
Even software languages have broken compatibility at times to advance. Can't hardware do the same?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Physical memory was extended to 36 bits by the PII (or was it PPro?).
For greater than 4Gb virtual, you can still use segmentation. A process can have (what, 12 bits of local segments, 12 bits of global segemnts) 8192 segments, each with 4 Gig memory. Hardly a hard limit. It just means data has to be broken up. All you old 286 programmers know how to do that don't you.
Note: AMDs X86-64 will supposedly discontinue support for segmentation in 64-bit mode.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
As you said, each processor has its own memory. If a processor needs data in another processors memory space, it has to request it over the Hyperchannel bus, not quite a local request (NUMA).
Multithreaded programs share a lot of data between threads.
Sooo. what you really mean is that two independant processes will each run as if on a dedicated processor (which they will). But multithreading will still have some memory and bus contention.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Yay!
It's all good.
You are quite right. The members of this website in many areas can be hypocriticial and knee jerk reactionaries. However this is typical of the public (especially the American public [of which I am a part]). They are most assuredly now finding favor with AMD for the very thing that they have been upset with Intel for /YEARS/ over, the backwards compatablity and inefficency issue. Intel's introduction of the Alpha chip was a /major/ step in the right direction and definately help thos of us in the industry who wanted to strike out in a new direction away from the x86, but the high cost due to Intel's failure to embrace the technology (and in general foist it on an unwitting populace for their own good [because let's face it, at that point in time Intel could have made that move without having lost significant market share and would have re-established itself as a market leader with a significantly better technology]). In defence of the people of this forum is they are fairly intellegent as a rule. I believe we as users of AMD chips have found that they perform at a higher computation- rate-per-second/per-clock-cycle than their much lauded competiter Intel (when refering the x86 chip), furthermore they are even less expensive on a clock-rate to clock-rate comparisum. Admittedly part of this is because AMD has been trailing Intel rather than blazing new ground, and it will be interesting to see if they can maintain this with their new 64/32 chip where (perhaps) they are striking out in a new direction than Intel, and may have to substain substantail R&D costs of their own. But AMD has earned our respect, while Intel has not, thus the knee jerk.
Hear, hear!
That was true of the older chips, but Athlons from about the XP/1600+ onward have much better (on-chip) thermal protection.
I don't know where the author got this piece of misinformation. Perhaps it's a FUD distortion from AMD relating to the fact that Itanium was not designed to run 32-bit apps, so it's not terribly efficient (read slower) in doing so -whereas Opteron, which is basically a 32-bit processor with address extensions is more efficient at running legacy code. Presumably, Hammer will not perform as well on real 64-bit apps as Itanium since it lacks massive parallelism and other architectural differences that Intel felt they needed to put into IA64.
AMD loved to talk the talk but has trouble walking the walk.
Meanwhile, why hate Intel? Sure they have stepped on some toes in the past, but they are supporting (even funding) Linux, helped get Linux ported to Merced first before NT. Have you ever notice that AMD spends half its press conferences badmouthing Intel while Intel never says anything bad about AMD? Finally, what about AMD's backdoor deal to defend Micro$oft?