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Despite Aging Design, x86 Still in Charge
An anonymous reader writes "The x86 chip architecture is still kicking, almost 30 years after it was first introduced. A News.com article looks into the reasons why we're not likely to see it phased out any time soon, and the history of a well-known instruction set architecture. 'Every time [there is a dramatic new requirement or change in the marketplace], whether it's the invention of the browser or low-cost network computers that were supposed to make PCs go away, the engineers behind x86 find a way to make it adapt to the situation. Is that a problem? Critics say x86 is saddled with the burden of supporting outdated features and software, and that improvements in energy efficiency and software development have been sacrificed to its legacy. And a comedian would say it all depends on what you think about disco.'"
The difference is English is actually _somewhat_ sensible, with at least the basics of grammar that even a child can learn in school.
X86, by contrast, is nonsensical instruction decoding baggage on top of a RISC these days. It's wasting silicon space, adding cost, wasting power, hurting performance (that's why there's an instruction decoding _cache_ these days). Why can't compilers just go straight to the RISC microcode level?