x86 is the architecture, amd64 is an extention on that architecture so it’s still x86 just with an instruction set extension that allows for native 64 bit computing.
x86 was designed to be nearly fully backwards compatible back to the i386 or even the 8086 so whatever code that could run on those CPUs would work on modern “amd64” CPUs.
Pretty much x86 is a snowball rolling down a hill. It keeps picking up new things and growing as time goes on but the core of it will always be the same.
To me x86 is currently in similar position to internal combustion engine cars. We are already almost certain some of the alternatives available right now are better.
The reason ICE/x86 seem better is that they have the benefit of being greatly optimised due to years of market dominance pulling billions if not trillions of dollars into research. Some company has to sacrifice a lot of money to get the ball rolling on new tech as it is very difficult for an emerging technology to break old tech dominance. However considering Apple seems to be pulling similar numbers on a way less developed architecture I d say we might be close.
I don’t know enough about the subjects to go into details, but I know enough to say that that is reductive. ARM/alternatives are not inherently better, at least not universally. And, especially because of the inertia, I do not expect x86 to be fully replaced on the desktop any time soon. The motivations behind companies such as Apple using ARM likely have more to do with licensing than anything else
It’s probably more useful to think of x86 and ARM as slightly different tools that are slightly better suited to different tasks. Desktop, server (and possibly high-performance) computing are x86’s specialty, and I do not expect it to be replaced
All-in-all, from what I know, the practical differences between ARM and x86 are nowhere near large enough to be compared to something like the electric vs internal combustion engine. It’s probably closer to a difference of, say, a typical train and a subway
But, please read up on this yourself. I am not an expert in hardware, this is just what i casually picked up as a layperson
Microsoft got to be as big as it is because they were the ones sitting at the table when IBM made the biggest whoopsie in all of business. They negotiated a non-exclusive license to MS-DOS for the Intel Reference Design PC they were slapping together. The only thing that was proprietary to IBM about the 5150 PC was the BIOS. Well other companies like Compaq engineered a non-infringing BIOS and were able to bring a 100% compatible competitor to the market. That, plus Intel being required to license the x86 architecture to AMD so that there could be second party suppliers if when Intel shit the bucket, made the PC a mostly open platform. Many companies made or make PCs, lots of companies publish software for Windows (or DOS before it).
I will continue to call even modern PCs “x86”, mostly to hurt sepi’s feelings at this point.
Apple, meanwhile, maintains a death grip on their vertically integrated empire. Only they sell the hardware, only they distribute the operating system, they either make the software in-house or vendors must work closely with them to publish software on their stores.
Then you’ve got Linux, who showed up and used whatever hardware was available.
Windows on x86 PCs is a closed source, open ecosystem. You can cobble the hardware together from a number of vendors, and software is usually distributed as closed source pre-compiled binaries–compiled for x86 or later, sometimes with in-line handwritten assembly. An anti-competitive streak plus the complacency that comes with being a big successful business has made Microsoft unable to realistically make a platform switch. They used the difficulty of decompiling compiled binaries as a method of copy protection for too long, and now important people NEED very old software to work on new hardware and all the loose standards are so ugly that no it’s really not plausible to make Windows for ARM without breaking a lot of legacy applications. Just in gaming. Think of how many games are out there that the publishers are either defunct or just moved on from their old games. The source code is gone or they were made in an old version of Unity that requires features that don’t work anymore so even if you have the old project files it’s difficult if not impossible to work on anymore, so how many games would Microsoft orphan if they said “Oops all ARM now?” And then it’s not just gaming, it’s all the MRI machines and city transit systems and airport systems and banks and credit cards that were built for some old version of Windows and are still in use as they were…they just…can’t abandon the x86 architecture.
Apple is a closed source closed ecosystem. It has such a firm grip on both the hardware itself and the APIs that third party software developers may use that they can accomplish “We’re switching from Motorola PowerPC to Intel x86 now” or “We’re switching from Intel x86 to AppleSilicon ARM now.” They can make the same toolchains output to different architectures or write working translation layers like Rosetta to get those transitions made relatively seamlessly for end users. It does mean you’re locked into one hardware vendor and pretty much one software source.
Linux is an open source, open ecosystem. The second a new architecture is added to GCC, Linux will be compiled for it. Debian Linux for RISC-V was available before there was silicon to run it on. Because most software for Linux is open source, anyone who wants to can compile it for different architectures. Most of Desktop End User Linux is de facto on x86 PCs designed for Windows is because that’s the hardware that’s widely commercially available. There is the problem that things like Wine and Proton don’t bridge the gap between architectures so people playing Windows games on Linux will have the same issue that Windows does on ARM hardware, but the open source ecosystem itself can just slide around.
That’s one way to finally kill x86.
x86 is already dead yo
edit: downvoters don’t understand they are using amd64 and not x86 lol wtf
edit 2: downvoters of this comment are computer-illiterate
x86 is the architecture, amd64 is an extention on that architecture so it’s still x86 just with an instruction set extension that allows for native 64 bit computing.
x86 was designed to be nearly fully backwards compatible back to the i386 or even the 8086 so whatever code that could run on those CPUs would work on modern “amd64” CPUs.
Pretty much x86 is a snowball rolling down a hill. It keeps picking up new things and growing as time goes on but the core of it will always be the same.
🧩
good point. It still makes me smile how that one went down. imagine if we were all on f’ing itanium instead.
It’s very much not? It’s not even certain if an alternative architecture will ever fully replace it
To me x86 is currently in similar position to internal combustion engine cars. We are already almost certain some of the alternatives available right now are better.
The reason ICE/x86 seem better is that they have the benefit of being greatly optimised due to years of market dominance pulling billions if not trillions of dollars into research. Some company has to sacrifice a lot of money to get the ball rolling on new tech as it is very difficult for an emerging technology to break old tech dominance. However considering Apple seems to be pulling similar numbers on a way less developed architecture I d say we might be close.
I don’t know enough about the subjects to go into details, but I know enough to say that that is reductive. ARM/alternatives are not inherently better, at least not universally. And, especially because of the inertia, I do not expect x86 to be fully replaced on the desktop any time soon. The motivations behind companies such as Apple using ARM likely have more to do with licensing than anything else
It’s probably more useful to think of x86 and ARM as slightly different tools that are slightly better suited to different tasks. Desktop, server (and possibly high-performance) computing are x86’s specialty, and I do not expect it to be replaced
All-in-all, from what I know, the practical differences between ARM and x86 are nowhere near large enough to be compared to something like the electric vs internal combustion engine. It’s probably closer to a difference of, say, a typical train and a subway
But, please read up on this yourself. I am not an expert in hardware, this is just what i casually picked up as a layperson
Here is the way I understand it:
Microsoft got to be as big as it is because they were the ones sitting at the table when IBM made the biggest whoopsie in all of business. They negotiated a non-exclusive license to MS-DOS for the Intel Reference Design PC they were slapping together. The only thing that was proprietary to IBM about the 5150 PC was the BIOS. Well other companies like Compaq engineered a non-infringing BIOS and were able to bring a 100% compatible competitor to the market. That, plus Intel being required to license the x86 architecture to AMD so that there could be second party suppliers
ifwhen Intel shit the bucket, made the PC a mostly open platform. Many companies made or make PCs, lots of companies publish software for Windows (or DOS before it).I will continue to call even modern PCs “x86”, mostly to hurt sepi’s feelings at this point.
Apple, meanwhile, maintains a death grip on their vertically integrated empire. Only they sell the hardware, only they distribute the operating system, they either make the software in-house or vendors must work closely with them to publish software on their stores.
Then you’ve got Linux, who showed up and used whatever hardware was available.
Windows on x86 PCs is a closed source, open ecosystem. You can cobble the hardware together from a number of vendors, and software is usually distributed as closed source pre-compiled binaries–compiled for x86 or later, sometimes with in-line handwritten assembly. An anti-competitive streak plus the complacency that comes with being a big successful business has made Microsoft unable to realistically make a platform switch. They used the difficulty of decompiling compiled binaries as a method of copy protection for too long, and now important people NEED very old software to work on new hardware and all the loose standards are so ugly that no it’s really not plausible to make Windows for ARM without breaking a lot of legacy applications. Just in gaming. Think of how many games are out there that the publishers are either defunct or just moved on from their old games. The source code is gone or they were made in an old version of Unity that requires features that don’t work anymore so even if you have the old project files it’s difficult if not impossible to work on anymore, so how many games would Microsoft orphan if they said “Oops all ARM now?” And then it’s not just gaming, it’s all the MRI machines and city transit systems and airport systems and banks and credit cards that were built for some old version of Windows and are still in use as they were…they just…can’t abandon the x86 architecture.
Apple is a closed source closed ecosystem. It has such a firm grip on both the hardware itself and the APIs that third party software developers may use that they can accomplish “We’re switching from Motorola PowerPC to Intel x86 now” or “We’re switching from Intel x86 to AppleSilicon ARM now.” They can make the same toolchains output to different architectures or write working translation layers like Rosetta to get those transitions made relatively seamlessly for end users. It does mean you’re locked into one hardware vendor and pretty much one software source.
Linux is an open source, open ecosystem. The second a new architecture is added to GCC, Linux will be compiled for it. Debian Linux for RISC-V was available before there was silicon to run it on. Because most software for Linux is open source, anyone who wants to can compile it for different architectures. Most of Desktop End User Linux is de facto on x86 PCs designed for Windows is because that’s the hardware that’s widely commercially available. There is the problem that things like Wine and Proton don’t bridge the gap between architectures so people playing Windows games on Linux will have the same issue that Windows does on ARM hardware, but the open source ecosystem itself can just slide around.
x86 is dead. Has been for years. You’ve been using amd64. I am not referring to ARM
I hat if I’m running a 32bit OS?
This is how capitalism shoots itself in the foot. It’s not actually the best system for progressing as quickly as possible.
x86 has been dead for years and you have been using amd64
🧩
x86 has been dead for years. y’all are using amd64. Or do y’all not know the difference?
Which is a superset of x86; my AMD gaming machine can trace its roots all the way back to the IBM-5150.
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What are you smoking lmao
What are you smoking? x86 has been gone for years. Y’all are using amd64.
x86_64 ?
🧩