Re: [TOTALLY 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

[Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org>]

Sven Hartge wrote: 
> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> 
> > From a purely technical perspective, it's hard to understand how Intel
> > managed to pour so much energy into such an obviously bad idea.  The
> > only explanations seem all to be linked to market strategies.
> 
> This history repeats for Intel on several fronts:
> 
> Or the discussion about ECC for desktop devices. Intel argues "not
> needed", which is, if you follow the Rowhammer issues, not true. AMD
> just does it and it works.

Intel knew that their argument was bull: they owned the market
and needed ways of subdividing their CPUs to fit every price
point. Turning off ECC support was one of those ways.

That strategy started with the 80486, when they brought out a
cheap version called the 80486SX which lacked a floating point
unit. The SX has the floating point unit, it was just turned
off. Worse: purchasing the 80487 math coprocessor to enable
floating point support... the 487 was a full 486, that turned
off the original.

> Then there was FB-DIMM back in the 2008s. Nice idea, just, again, too
> expensive and disconnected from the market in the end.

Intel wanted more pricing points. 

> I personally am really glad that AMD got their stuff together again and
> with their ZenX-Architectures showed Intel how it is done.
> 
> What AMD now needs is a hit in the low, lower and ultra-low power
> segment.

They've got the low and lower parts now: 35W and 15W 4000-series
APUs, from the Renoir design. Stefan and I were just talking
about how you can't buy one with a normal motherboard right now
because they are entirely allocated to systems integrators. AMD
is selling 100% of production.

They don't have any 7W or lower parts, but those things aren't
very interesting compared to ARM64 architecture, where Qualcomm
and Apple and any number of smaller shops are doing great things
in the tablet and phone space.

-dsr-