Whatever happened to x86-64?

Keith wrote:
In 1988, which was about OS/2 V1's delivery timeframe, were 286 systems
really still commanding 90% of the general market?

Yes. The 386s were expensive, and IIRC not avalilable in large
quantities.

In 1988, there was still quite a significant presence in the market of 8088
systems (/8086/V20/V30), let alone 286s; I'm not sure whether 286+ systems
would have yet been the majority of the new systems market - they might have
been, but they certainly weren't yet the majority of the installed base.

By the time 286-based systems were cheap enough to have fully killed the
8086/8088 ones, the 386SX was out and rapidly putting the 286 off the
market; I don't recall the window when 286s were affordable to hobbyists and
home users as having been very long at all.

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/

"What's the use of yearning for Elysian Fields when you know you can't get
'em, and would only let 'em out on building leases if you had 'em?" (WSG)

Henry Nettles noone@nowhere wrote:
It still seems totally insane to me that anyone would have spent
serious money to engineer a new 286 computer a year after the 386
computers had reached the market.

At a near-ridiculous price, initially.

And it was hardly just 286s; the PS/2 Model 25 and 30 were still 8086s,
albeit not fully PS/2s since they weren't MCA-based.

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/

"What's the use of yearning for Elysian Fields when you know you can't get
'em, and would only let 'em out on building leases if you had 'em?" (WSG)

Evgenij Barsukov wrote:
Now if you need to address 8 GB of memory for some purposes (DB
server?), 64 bit is the only game in town.

Actually, there are performance benefits with anything over 2gb on Windows,
and 1gb on an unpatched Linux kernel (and over 2gb there in any event).

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/

"What's the use of yearning for Elysian Fields when you know you can't get
'em, and would only let 'em out on building leases if you had 'em?" (WSG)

Keith wrote:
I'm sure you recall that OS/2 was supposed to do all that stuff while
running on a 286 PC/AT.

Yeah well that was the big mistake. Back then even Intel took the stance
that the 386 was only for those "who really needed it" - they thought the
same with 486... and even had a slew of 386 support chips still in the
pipeline when 486 came out.


It can only be taken as a "big mistake" in hindsight. 90% of the systems
being shipped were 286's and the installed base was huge. ...forgetting
that the '386 was expensive. Dell, you more than most, know that IBM is
all about protecting customer's investments. These systems weren't $400
Dells.

The big problem was not the 286's memory model in protected mode. It was
the fact that the 286 couldn't emulate Real mode while in Protected
mode, like the 386 could with Virtual-8086 mode. V86 was the biggest
boost for the 386, because now it could run DOS while in Protected mode.

Desqview along with its memory manager, Qemm386, certainly took
advantage of it almost right away. The DOS extenders came out even
before the first versions of Unix came out for the 386, so they were
truly the first operating systems ported to the 386 and above.

Yousuf Khan

On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 20:58:54 -0500, Keith wrote:

On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 17:17:09 -0500, George Macdonald wrote:

On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 11:04:33 -0500, Keith wrote:

On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 06:31:25 -0500, George Macdonald wrote:

On Sat, 04 Feb 2006 21:48:32 -0500, Keith wrote:


snip

I don't recall but it had no interest at all for me... 3 years after
the arrival of 80386.

Three years? Were 386s available in 1984? OS/2 V1 was released in
April of 1987.

Well it was announced in April '87 - don't recall actual general
availability but after attending the tech conference (nice mug they
handed out... still have it) in NYC we had no interest anyway.

Sheesh! It was available on its release date. Are you telling be that
you couldn't get a copy for *three* years? Perhaps your last phrase says
it all. Tell me, were you happy with Win95?

No, if it really was available on release date that would be ~2 years after
80386 but also remember that was V1.0 -- or was it 1.1? -- where the DOS
Compatibility Box was known as the "Penalty Box".:-) As for Win95, that
was 8 years in the future and it *did* give us some headaches due to M$
chicanery with DPMI and compiler availability.

BTW Phar Lap's DOS Extender was released in November '86 and supported the
32-bit flat memory model - it was a no brainer for developers who needed
that.

But "all that stuff" I mentioned included the 32-bit flat memory
model - that was the killer for doing real computing on a desktop. A
lot of mainframe code got converted to Phar Lap's DOS Extender.

Wunnerful, but that's hardly the point.

Again, perspective. For people who felt hog-tied by the segmented
memory model it was a big deal.

So, you thought Windows was somehow better, in 1987? OS/2 V2 was
released in 1992 and supported the 386 fully.

No, in fact we had unopened Windows boxes lying around at the time - no
interest at all, since it didn't know anything of 386 Protected Mode.
The Phar Lap 32-bit code ran just fine under DesqView386.

So did OS/2, though you had already decided that you weren't interested.
*THAT* was OS/2's problem. No one cared that it was elegant and just
*worked*. IBM didn't care enough that the let it die from neglect. Too
bad, Billy won by default. Too bad indeed.

I'm not sure which version of OS/2 you're talking about here - certainly V2
was broadly compatible with different modes of 80386 operation, and
specifically DPMI [dunno what version of DPMI], but I recall investigating
V1.x at release and it made no claim of being able to support VCPI which
was the predecessor of DPMI. If Phar Lap had specified that their
development environment worked under OS/2 V1.x we would probably have tried
it; by the time OS/2 V2 came along [4years after V1.x ?], it was too late
- nobody was interested, not even customers with big IBM iron. I got a
copy of OS/2 V2, installed it on a system, showed it to colleagues and PHB,
it "worked" with our DOS Extender code... result: BIG shrug.

BTW Phar Lap got screwed too... in a rather big way - BG visited Richard
Smith to pick his brains on 32-bit Protected Mode, paging etc.; they were a
major contributor to DPMI specs, which M$ then declined to implement to
their full 1.0 specs. AFAIK it was the usual "why don't you become a
certified partner?", followed after a short time by "bend over please".

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

YKhanwrote:
Adorable little Ed Stroglio rant:

Hatching Eggs . . .
"Remember x86-64? The stick AMD was supposed to beat Intel to
death
with?

Then Intel got themselves the same stick, and the would-be beaters
found something else to talk about. Yes, AMD is doing better now,
but
not because of x86-64. Indeed, AMD's increased fortunes have come
well
after Intel switched.

Microsoft came out with a Windows XP for x86-64, but the world
hasn't
exactly stampeded to get it."
http://www.overclockers.com/tips00910/

I always thought the reason nobody flocked to XP x64 was because
Microsoft delayed and delayed so much to let Intel catch up that
people
lost interest in it? I mean you know Microsoft was delaying here,
even
Solaris 10 came out for x64 before Windows did, despite starting
work
on it 2 years later.

Yousuf Khan

Long Post; bringing in some history to properly answer this question.

Yes, good article and that's the reason I never made the switch to 64.
I'm still using my XP-3200 400. It still has quite a bit of wow
factor. When I upgrade, what I'm upgrading too; has to wow me from
what I'm leaving, or I won't waste the money on it. I've not seen
anything since my 3200 that can do that. Degrees of performance
doesn't interest me. Real world performance does.

But I do disagree with the author. AMD's Athlon 64 was a large factor
in it's success today, why? Talk, lots of talk.

The market finally saw Intel for what it was. Obsolete; and the talk
started with the masses. Intel wanted to keep 64 proprietary,
probably for residual income one way or another. They claimed, like
so many times before on other issues; we, the consumer just didn't
need it.

Remember when Intel said 64 bit could never be physically compatable
with X86? I do. AMD had to be laughing, and as it kept going, Intel
had to play catch up without any new innovation of their own. I mean
you have to feel sorry for Intel; "Just ramp up the clock
speed" is their bible. As they caught up in performance (and a
lot more heat), AMD just left them in the dust again and again.

Once AMD earned "gaming" rights with it's FX, the writing
was on the wall. Gaming is what moves the industry and why
innovation happens at all; it's what all the talk is centered around.
Increases there, is where even Joe sixpack can see it.

Maybe you can't afford it, but you wish you had it... That's serious
talk, know what I mean?

Once Intel hit the inevitable thermal threshold the talk became true;
obsolete and no where to go. BTX indeed. It's pretty bad when a
Pentium M, a substrate of the old P-3, can out game their latest and
greatest P-4's. So much so, that now you can buy full size ATX M
motherboards!

Today, Intel's talking 45nm, when they have hot spots in the 65; which
can just about heat your house! They talk about the 45 like it's some
kind of advancement. The only advancement is yield which means more
processors per wafer, not any better or faster; just more money.
That does you no good if you have no one to sell them too. It just
doesn't cut it anymore and now, everybody knows it. Marketing isn't
going to help this one.

The only edge they ever had was Hyper Threading, which is how old now?
The X2 more then took care of that.

Intel's latest pathetic attempt at dual core, I'm sorry, is just
laughable!

Now, it seems obvious that Intel has lost it's way. It's changing
it's corporate mission, and even it's corporate logo! Panic has set
in.

It's not just talk folks...

Now, it's "cool" to have an AMD. Who'd of ever thought
that? I wouldn't of and I've been using AMD since the K6-2 days.

But, don't be fooled; that Intel negative talk, by the masses, was
started by the Athlon 64. That in itself, automatically means more
market share to AMD; anyway you slice or dice it and Dell be d*mned.
Now, AMD has taken on Intel in a full scale frontal assault. Their
only limit is how long it takes to build a factory. Wow, what a nice
place to be. I knew they could do it; ever since that first K6-2!

And still the Intel fanatics say AMD hasn't really hurt Intel. Still,
to this day, and on these forums people say that. That's unreal, what
will it take?

From servers to notebooks to lawsuits; they're not considered fringe
anymore and they are looked at as the market leader of tech. Not
because of size, not because of sales; because of innovation. It is
now seen to be the only one that has it. That in turn, means even
more marketshare. AMD being viable began with the Athlon
Thunderbird. The 64 made them clearly the innovator, Windows or not.
And the result? Intel just missed it numbers. I've been predicting
just this sort of thing for quite a few years now. Get used to it
you Intel lovers out there.

All that said; I never fell for the 64 hype. With no Windows, or
software to properly take advantage of it, what's the point? And, in
all fairness, Windows 64 bit right now, still leaves plenty to want.
Especially in the area of available drivers. Most, still don't have
those. What's the point even now? That's why there's no stampede to
it. I remember all the problems XP caused when it first came out.
Drivers were the issue then as well. Will Vista have a full
assortment of drivers available to it? I doubt it. If it does, then
why doesn't XP 64 have them now?

I'll always believe that Microsoft purposely stalled Windows 64. They
didn't call these machines Win/Tel for no reason. But, it didn't help
Intel at all. The AMD march continued anyway...

Today, the only real difference between the XP-3200 and the Athlon 64
is a small increase in 32 bit performance due to the onboard memory
bus. That's hardly wowing.

The XP-3200 was the last great thing to come down the pike.
Everything else, has, and will continue to be, "waiting for the
eggs to hatch." I'm still waiting... Luckily, I didn't waste
three complete platforms in the wait.

Congratulations to Microsoft, you saved me the cost of three complete
platforms. Not to mention the three complete versions of Windows 64
I would have bought to go with them.

And, my "ancient" 3200 has no problem running a full McAfee
scan, and me working on other things at the same time. Just load
them first.

The only wow factor I've seen come out of the PC business for quite
some time, is video. SLI has it. It's a sad state of affairs when
Nvidia is the only one delivering wow factor that's significant and
tangable for every day use.

Their software engineers seem to keep up without a problem. What
makes them different? Whatever it is, they sure smoked the hell out
of ATI. Cross Fire, like the new Intel dual core, isn't even close.

Sorry about the long post.[/quote]

dannysdailyswrote:
[quote:2d8e2b8756="YKhan"]Adorable little Ed Stroglio rant:

Hatching Eggs . . .
"Remember x86-64? The stick AMD was supposed to beat Intel to
death
with?

Then Intel got themselves the same stick, and the would-be beaters
found something else to talk about. Yes, AMD is doing better now,
but
not because of x86-64. Indeed, AMD's increased fortunes have come
well
after Intel switched.

Microsoft came out with a Windows XP for x86-64, but the world
hasn't
exactly stampeded to get it."
http://www.overclockers.com/tips00910/

I always thought the reason nobody flocked to XP x64 was because
Microsoft delayed and delayed so much to let Intel catch up that
people
lost interest in it? I mean you know Microsoft was delaying here,
even
Solaris 10 came out for x64 before Windows did, despite starting
work
on it 2 years later.

Yousuf Khan

Long Post; bringing in some history to properly answer this question.

Yes, good article and that's the reason I never made the switch to 64.
I'm still using my XP-3200 400. It still has quite a bit of wow
factor. When I upgrade, what I'm upgrading too; has to wow me from
what I'm leaving, or I won't waste the money on it. I've not seen
anything since my 3200 that can do that. Degrees of performance
doesn't interest me. Real world performance does.

But I do disagree with the author. AMD's Athlon 64 was a large factor
in it's success today, why? Talk, lots of talk.

The market finally saw Intel for what it was. Obsolete; and the talk
started with the masses. Intel wanted to keep 64 proprietary,
probably for residual income one way or another. They claimed, like
so many times before on other issues; we, the consumer just didn't
need it.

Intel; decided for the entire computer industry; "our good,"
what we needed. What really is Intel? It's a processor company;
that's all. Who are they to dictate to anybody what "we
need?" Not that that was unusual with Intel though. But, you'd
have thought they'd have learned by now with all the other things that
blew up in there faces. The latest of which is BTX.

Remember when Intel said 64 bit could never be physically compatable
with X86? I do. AMD had to be laughing, and as it kept going, Intel
had to play catch up without any new innovation of their own. I mean
you have to feel sorry for Intel; "Just ramp up the clock
speed" is their bible. As they caught up in performance (and a
lot more heat), AMD just left them in the dust again and again.

Once AMD earned "gaming" rights with it's FX, the writing
was on the wall. Gaming is what moves the industry and why
innovation happens at all; it's what all the talk is centered around.
Increases there, is where even Joe sixpack can see it.

Maybe you can't afford it, but you wish you had it... That's serious
talk, know what I mean?

Once Intel hit the inevitable thermal threshold the talk became true;
obsolete and no where to go. BTX indeed. It's pretty bad when a
Pentium M, a substrate of the old P-3, can out game their latest and
greatest P-4's. So much so, that now you can buy full size ATX M
motherboards!

Today, Intel's talking 45nm, when they have hot spots in the 65; which
can just about heat your house! They talk about the 45 like it's some
kind of advancement. The only advancement is yield which means more
processors per wafer, not any better or faster; just more money.
That does you no good if you have no one to sell them too. It just
doesn't cut it anymore and now, everybody knows it. Marketing isn't
going to help this one.

The only edge they ever had was Hyper Threading, which is how old now?
The X2 more then took care of that.

Intel's latest pathetic attempt at dual core, I'm sorry, is just
laughable!

Now, it seems obvious that Intel has lost it's way. It's changing
it's corporate mission, and even it's corporate logo! Panic has set
in.

It's not just talk folks...

Now, it's "cool" to have an AMD. Who'd of ever thought
that? I wouldn't of and I've been using AMD since the K6-2 days.

But, don't be fooled; that Intel negative talk, by the masses, was
started by the Athlon 64. That in itself, automatically means more
market share to AMD; anyway you slice or dice it and Dell be d*mned.
Now, AMD has taken on Intel in a full scale frontal assault. Their
only limit is how long it takes to build a factory. Wow, what a nice
place to be. I knew they could do it; ever since that first K6-2!

And still the Intel fanatics say AMD hasn't really hurt Intel. Still,
to this day, and on these forums people say that. That's unreal, what
will it take?

From servers to notebooks to lawsuits; they're not considered fringe
anymore and they are looked at as the market leader of tech. Not
because of size, not because of sales; because of innovation. It is
now seen to be the only one that has it. That in turn, means even
more marketshare. AMD being viable began with the Athlon
Thunderbird. The 64 made them clearly the innovator, Windows or not.
And the result? Intel just missed it numbers. I've been predicting
just this sort of thing for quite a few years now. Get used to it
you Intel lovers out there.

All that said; I never fell for the 64 hype. With no Windows, or
software to properly take advantage of it, what's the point? And, in
all fairness, Windows 64 bit right now, still leaves plenty to want.
Especially in the area of available drivers. Most, still don't have
those. What's the point even now? That's why there's no stampede to
it. I remember all the problems XP caused when it first came out.
Drivers were the issue then as well. Will Vista have a full
assortment of drivers available to it? I doubt it. If it does, then
why doesn't XP 64 have them now?

I'll always believe that Microsoft purposely stalled Windows 64. They
didn't call these machines Win/Tel for no reason. But, it didn't help
Intel at all. The AMD march continued anyway...

Today, the only real difference between the XP-3200 and the Athlon 64
is a small increase in 32 bit performance due to the onboard memory
bus. That's hardly wowing.

The XP-3200 was the last great thing to come down the pike.
Everything else, has, and will continue to be, "waiting for the
eggs to hatch." I'm still waiting... Luckily, I didn't waste
three complete platforms in the wait.

Congratulations to Microsoft, you saved me the cost of three complete
platforms. Not to mention the three complete versions of Windows 64
I would have bought to go with them.

And, my "ancient" 3200 has no problem running a full McAfee
scan, and me working on other things at the same time. Just load
them first.

The only wow factor I've seen come out of the PC business for quite
some time, is video. SLI has it. It's a sad state of affairs when
Nvidia is the only one delivering wow factor that's significant and
tangable for every day use.

Their software engineers seem to keep up without a problem. What
makes them different? Whatever it is, they sure smoked the hell out
of ATI. Cross Fire, like the new Intel dual core, isn't even close.

Sorry about the long post.[/quote:2d8e2b8756]

Keith wrote:
Their legacy is only in "PS/2" mouse interface and keyboard connectors.


Yeah, no one really needed bullet-proof desktops and plug-n-play.
Reliability? Who wants that?!


Yeah, and nobody was that impressed with the Playstation 2 back then
either. :-)

Keith wrote:
MCA was a good thing, considering IBM's customers (remember, MCI PnP
worked) and how poorly ISA worked. The politics of MCA weren't what most
people think. MCA was openly licensed and for small money. Control was
what the anti-MCA thing was all about. MCA had it all over every other
attempt at a bus until PCI (controlled by Intel, which was somehow a good
thing). Even PCI had severe growing pains.

Wasn't the MCA license available for a 5% royalty per system? Not so little.

Yousuf Khan

"Keith" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 06 Feb 2006 05:01:16 +0000, Alexander Grigoriev wrote:

They shot themselves in a foot with their proprietary MCI bus. Good or
bad
it was, MCI is dead and PS2 mices and KB are being quietly replaced by
USB.

MCA was a good thing, considering IBM's customers (remember, MCI PnP
worked) and how poorly ISA worked. The politics of MCA weren't what
most
people think. MCA was openly licensed and for small money. Control
was
what the anti-MCA thing was all about. MCA had it all over every other
attempt at a bus until PCI (controlled by Intel, which was somehow a
good
thing). Even PCI had severe growing pains.

PS/2 mouses and keyboards have been around for 20 years and will be
around
for a good while yet. That's not so bad, given how technology moves.
Not
that PS/2 ports were much to write home about anyway (just a form
factor
change from the AT keyboard connector taht's a quarter century old).
I'd
rather not go to USB for such things (what gain?). USB is just too
complicated for such a simple thing as a mechanical human interface.
I'll keep my Model-Ms, thanks anyway.

--
Keith

But they didn't have the brilliant idea to donate the MCA bus to MCA sig
that they created and populated with their ecosystem so it would be
"open" yet controllable. That was a stroke of genius by intel with PCI.
Or at least it seems that way.

del cecchi