Anybody still hate x86 on principal?

[ElPolloDiabl]

Is there anybody here who stills hates x86 because PowerPC was better?
If so did you have no problem buying an ARM device?

If you take into account the latest IBM PowerPC it is only marginally better than an x86 Xeon.
It is also getting a little confusing nowadays with all the SIMD and the reprogrammable graphics units.

The CPU could be very different in 5 years from what it is now.

[yssing]

I think that the Central Processing Unit will still be that, unless some one comes up with a computer, where every chip can do the same thing.
Imagine a computer, where all the chips can do the same things equally good, the OS has to take care of what does what, and when one chip becomes overburdened, the OS simply takes the needed resources, from what ever chips has free resources.
There would be no dedicated cpu, gpu, IO controller, memory controller and so on.

The Xeon, isn't that a server CPU?

[commodorejohn]

I don't hate it because PowerPC was better, I'm disinterested in it because it is and has always been an uninteresting and vaguely icky design. Less so now than in the 8086 days, but still, bleah.

[OlafS3]

Even if it has a "icky" design, who cares. I am developing software on Windows in normal life and never be confronted with assembler. Even on amiga (as long as you develop software using system routines and not directly hacking hardware) you are not confronted with the "icky" design. And users are not confronted anyway. And system programmer mostly use C (and assembler only on rare cases). So finally it is not important if "PowerPC" "could" be better because it is not. It is slower, it is more expensive and so on.

[NorthWay]

Is there anybody here who stills hates x86 because PowerPC was better?

No, just on principal of x86 being horrible. It should have died in a ball of fire. Much like M$ in fact...

[OlafS3]

the world has moved on. Most "real world" today uses X86/X64 or ARM (tablets...). PowerPC is simply dead. When are you really confronted with the "icky" or "horrible" design when you use a computer or program on it?

[psxphill]

Is there anybody here who stills hates x86 because PowerPC was better?
If so did you have no problem buying an ARM device?

Coming from 6502 I didn't have a major problem with x86, especially as it paid he bills.
 
I never got into PowerPC & if Apple hadn't chosen and promoted it, then nobody else would have done either. Also if commodore had survived then they wouldn't have chosen it & we'd have all loved hombre.
 
I wouldn't buy an ARM based computer, but in an embedded device they are fine (same as MIPS).

[matt3k]

Hate might be a bit strong for me, not happy would be more accurate:).

I'm somewhat numb to it, like windows.  Have to use it every day, typing this message in windows 7 right now...

Where is my PB G4 when I need it (running MOS) when I need it...  

Like many would have liked to see Amiga be the standard that everyone used today.  Sigh...

[matthey]

Is there anybody here who stills hates x86 because PowerPC was better?

I don't like x86 because it's a turd that was made to fly while the 68k was discarded like a piece of trash without even trying to upgrade it properly. PPC is better than x86 but then what isn't?

If so did you have no problem buying an ARM device?

ARM is ok but there is way too many variations to categorize it in one group. The original RISC ARM is innovative and interesting. The 68k should have been enhanced and brought back instead of Thumb 2, not that it's bad either. The 68k is still better.

If you take into account the latest IBM PowerPC it is only marginally better than an x86 Xeon.

Power or PowerPC? The U.S. Government subsidizes IBM's Power research for defense purposes. They must have wanted alternative servers to the easy to take down x86 M$ targets with endless exploits that every hacker knows.

Even if it has a "icky" design, who cares. I am developing software on Windows in normal life and never be confronted with assembler. Even on amiga (as long as you develop software using system routines and not directly hacking hardware) you are not confronted with the "icky" design. And users are not confronted anyway. And system programmer mostly use C (and assembler only on rare cases). So finally it is not important if "PowerPC" "could" be better because it is not. It is slower, it is more expensive and so on.

What's "icky" about the 68k and the Amiga? The x86 processors are fast and compilers and develop tools are good enough on the x86 that low level (icky?) knowledge isn't as necessary there. Then again, look at the bloat and slow down from the multitude of abstraction layers and lack of programmer knowledge of what it actually going on inside. If you have a problem, you call tech support instead of even considering assembler and system level debugging. On the Amiga, you just step right on into the Amiga OS function and see why it's causing a problem. In a perfect Amiga world, more processing power, better compilers and developer tools and better tech support would be nice though.

[OlafS3]

You name Win 7 but it is not about OS but Hardware. I do not care about hardware anymore and in most cases you are never confronted with it (except low-level/driver development). I would like to have something "amigish" as standard too because it has nice concepts.

[OlafS3]

I don't like x86 because it's a turd that was made to fly while the 68k was discarded like a piece of trash without even trying to upgrade it properly. PPC is better than x86 but then what isn't?



ARM is ok but there is way too many variations to categorize it in one group. The original RISC ARM is innovative and interesting. The 68k should have been enhanced and brought back instead of Thumb 2, not that it's bad either. The 68k is still better.



Power or PowerPC? The U.S. Government subsidizes IBM's Power research for defense purposes. They must have wanted alternative servers to the easy to take down x86 M$ targets with endless exploits that every hacker knows.




What's "icky" about the 68k and the Amiga? The x86 processors are fast and compilers and develop tools are good enough on the x86 that low level (icky?) knowledge isn't as necessary there. Then again, look at the bloat and slow down from the multitude of abstraction layers and lack of programmer knowledge of what it actually going on inside. If you have a problem, you call tech support instead of even considering assembler and system level debugging. On the Amiga, you just step right on into the Amiga OS function and see why it's causing a problem. In a perfect Amiga world, more processing power, better compilers and developer tools and better tech support would be nice though.

I only used this phrases from others. I personally do not care about it. If the hardware runs circles around PowerPC who cares about the concepts behind?

[OlafS3]

I think all these "Intel outside" rhetoric is past. "Amiga" (68k, AROS, MorphOS, AmigaOS) should run on the fastest available and affordable hardware and that is X86/X64 right now. One of the reasons why Amiga in the 90s declined was that it lost the hardware race with A500 and two disk drives as standard for gaming even at the beginning of 90s whereas PCs already had HD and VGA. So when we want some kind of rebirth we need it on competitive hardware.

[Duce]

Most people don't give 2 craps about what chip powers their machines these days as long as it gets the job done.  I don't need to know what chip is in my tablet or phone to know that it can still do far more real world tasks these days than any of my "NG" systems can.

I love the 68k series chips for what they are, but the plain facts are the competitors left them behind nearly 20 years ago.  The x86 chips were simply progressing technologically far quicker and were the dominant chips, love it or hate it.

Blind hatred of a chip or OS always staggered me - it did in the 90's and still does now.

Example - I've got a friend, complete Amiga purist.  He even despises my SAM and MOS boxes, only like the old C= stuff.  He dropped by after I finished building my main Miggy box and he was just stunned how nice it was to use, praising it for being the fastest Amiga he'd ever used.  I bs'ed him, told him what it supposedly had under the hood, etc.  Other than the mouse and keyboard, he couldn't see the physical box.

He was quite stunned to find out, when I pulled the tower out from under the desk, that it was an AMD powered Amithlon rig that comprised of not much more than about $50 worth of late 90's commodity hardware.

He spent the next hour screeching about the evils of "Big Brother x86", but didn't take his hand off the mouse for a moment he was enjoying it so much  

If it feels good, do it - don't sweat the small stuff with petty rivalries that were dumb 20 years ago, they are still dumb now.

[OlafS3]

I love the old 68k stuff too :-). You can run it by using UAE on pretty much every hardware now (including Android) and it is really fast and you have plenty of resouces and options (including running it on Windows, Mac and Linux). So why not combining "old" technology with modern hardware :-).

[Pentad]

Is there anybody here who stills hates x86 because PowerPC was better?

You might want to rethink your opinions there.  The PowerPC had/has its share of problems that were never going to be addressed.  The most important for portable, consumer products is PPW.  The same issue Apple saw in the product roadmap and one of the reasons they jumped ship.

Jobs talked about Performance Per Watt and whether you like Apple or not, he was correct.  If you look at the Apple presentation when they announced the Intel move you can see the stats he talks about.  Those are correct BTW.

Rumors were that Jobs begged IBM to reduce PPW so that a G5 could be in a notebook but IBM either wouldn't or couldn't and it forced Apple to move to Intel.  The smartest move they could have done IMO.

Even if you don't care about a PPC notebook, just look at it consumption in a desktop package.  It is a hot and power hungry chip.

ARM is a great portable chip but it is anemic on computational power.  Floating Point is it Achilles heel.

I'm not an Intel Fanboi, I just try keep up with this stuff.  Intel -to me- has to be a tablet CPU with desktop performance.  I'm saying, that people want the power of their notebook or desktop CPU in a backward compatible, power sipping, battery loving CPU that can run their tablet for 15 hours a day.

That is no small task.  Personally, I think Intel has done a great job.  They are not perfect but when you look at what they have done, I think it is very respectable.

-P