Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> No it wouldn't, and we had it by the late '80's with the advent of
>> 68040 abd 68060 accellerator boards for the Amiga's. But that flat
>> memory model and poor production QC doomed it.  Any program could make
>> a missfire and write into another programs memory space, crashing the
>> whole Mary Ann.
> Starting in '82 the 68010 added virtual memory and virtualization suport.

[ I can't remember any discussion of virtualization for that.
  Back then this only existed on things like IBM mainframes and noone in
  the workstation-and-lower markets cared about it, AFAIK.  ]

Note that this is only true in the sense of "wifi ready" (a laptop that
came without any wifi card but maybe with an antenna in the bezel): the
68010 was a very minor improvement of the 68000 which just fixed some
blunders that were making it (almost) impossible to provide support for
virtual memory.  You needed additional help (like an MMU) in order to
get virtual memory on the 68010 and that usually ended up very costly in
terms of performance.

Virtual memory only became vaguely usable with the 68020 (and then
actually usable on the 68030).


        Stefan