Isn't it strange that it seems to be Amithlon users/wanters that defend the x86?
It’s basically a form of protest against Motorola and IBM for their apparent lack of progress.
What happens if AMD or Intel controls PowerPC as their secondary CPU line instead of MIPs or ARM respectively?
Can IBM and Motorola complete directly these highly completive companies?
Do you realize that Motorola’s Strong-Arm CPU series are already behind Intel’s StrongARM in terms of clock speed?
Motorola basically contributed on killing most of 68k desktopOS platform by making it harder for desktopOS vendors to provide a cheap high-speed solution. CPU transition didn't things against the completion coming from x86 based desktop OS.
What happens if the old Commodore-Amiga selected an i80386 instead of MC68000? That is, imagine a 80s A500 machine with OCS with an 80386 CPU(and also includes a 32bit preemptive multitasking multimedia OS).
We may have WinXP/nVidia/ATI style PC box back in the 80s. MS may not have chance to develop their OS on x86 platform.
I think that the only positive point of the x86 is low price.
At least x86 manufactures recognize that money doesn't grow on trees.
Remember, Amiga’s original success is partly due to good performance and relatively cheap hardware prices i.e. A500/A1200 style products.
Other CPUs do the job more elegantly and better.
That would dependant on what types of job i.e. running legacy applications.
And yes, Kronos, people do still use asm optimisation and coding, just not on the x86. For other platforms, using visual basic to compile a new compiler would be unthinkable.
What is the proportion of IT programmers would be involved with "on metal" programming?
"Visual Basic" focuses on delivering RAD(Rapid Application Development) and concentrates more on the business problem and business solutions.
Try Borland Builder products, if you want a reasonability fast efficient object code and Visual Basic style learning curve.
Ok, anyway: you mention all the special things that have been done to shore up the basic 8086 legacy problems.
.
Modern x86 has a glorified x86 emulator engine for their “front end”.
Note that PPC achieves legacy compatibility in software* instead of hardware.
*referring 68k based software.
And they seem to be very effective, but there is a limit to how far you can push.
.
Define those limits.
Refer to
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020113045343563This shows some integer benchmarks between the different architectures.
=========================================
iMac G4 700MHz --
sign verify sign/s verify/s
rsa 512 bits 0.0036s 0.0004s 275.2 2826.6
rsa 1024 bits 0.0198s 0.0012s 50.6 847.8
rsa 2048 bits 0.1438s 0.0043s 7.0 230.7
rsa 4096 bits 1.0040s 0.0159s 1.0 62.9
sign verify sign/s verify/s
dsa 512 bits 0.0033s 0.0041s 301.0 245.8
dsa 1024 bits 0.0118s 0.0147s 84.8 68.2
dsa 2048 bits 0.0421s 0.0503s 23.7 19.9
=========================================
K6-3 450Mhz
K6-3 450Mhz 320Mb ram P100 cas2
slackware linux, 8.1 2.4.19 kernel
sign verify sign/s verify/s
rsa 512 bits 0.0039s 0.0003s 254.6 2914.7
rsa 1024 bits 0.0210s 0.0011s 47.6 925.9
rsa 2048 bits 0.1292s 0.0037s 7.7 270.5
rsa 4096 bits 0.8675s 0.0132s 1.2 75.6
sign verify sign/s verify/s
dsa 512 bits 0.0036s 0.0043s 278.5 234.9
dsa 1024 bits 0.0109s 0.0131s 92.0 76.1
dsa 2048 bits 0.0363s 0.0447s 27.5 22.4
=========================================
Focus on rightmost column.
K6-III 450Mhz pretty much equaling G4 700MHz on this type application.
You build your foundations on the sand, and no matter how well you build your house, it will collapse in the end.
I wonder which CPU type bring in the money...
This is the cold, hard truth in the end, no matter how many billions of dollars and millions of man-hours you spend.
Where is your facts to support your case?