Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture

&gt; Since its introduction over 20 years ago, the Intel® 64 architecture became the dominant operating mode.<p>*cough*[1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;X86-64#History" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;X86-64#History</a>

For those truly too lazy to click through to the article, x86-S stands for &quot;simplified,&quot; with the idea being to boot directly into 64-bit mode instead of booting into 16-bit and bootstrapping to 64-bit mode. 16-bit mode would be removed entirely. It&#x27;s not clear to me if 32-bit mode would be axed as well, or if it would be retained (maybe partially).

64Bit (OS) only and kicking out legacy cruft which doesn&#x27;t just add complexity but also can in some edge cases can make security harder sound like a very sane idea, just maybe kinda late. I mean they probably could have started pushing this in some areas, like server and high-end CPUS, like 5-10years ago.

The only thing growing faster than the number of transistors is the number of pages in the specification. Ditching legacy is a good thing.

This makes no sense to me. Backward compatibility is a huge competitive advantage for Intel, and IMHO, it&#x27;s royally messed up that vm86 mode doesn&#x27;t work in 64-bit mode.<p>One DOS application I use was hurt by this: &quot;old DOS OrCAD&quot;. It works well in Windows-XP on a 32-bit machine, but does not work at all in 64-bit Windows. (It&#x27;s actually a 32-bit DPMI program and has drivers to use Windows GDI so you don&#x27;t have to mess around with drivers).<p>More evidence: IBM 360 mainframe software still works in Z&#x2F;OS.<p>It might be worth it for non-generic computing devices like cell phones, but Intel missed the boat there already.

Legacy code has still important real-life functions to drive. That is clear.<p>That Intel has to thread carefully to dump in-hardware 16 bit compatibility mode in 2023 is just sad.<p>I can also see why who does not have to deal with so much baggage on their shoulders is capable of being much more nimble and drive innovation.<p>Finally I can now better understand why Apple dumps an ISA every decade or so.

I said in 1994 that when Moore&#x27;s Law finally stopped, we could go back and clean up all our hasty patches.<p>Maybe Moore&#x27;s Law really is dead.<p>&#x2F;tears for the end of Moore&#x27;s Law, just shortly after that great man passed away.

&gt; Since its introduction over 20 years ago, the Intel® 64 architecture became the dominant operating mode.<p>Okay that&#x27;s a bit heavy on the retcon, don&#x27;t you think?

&gt; Intel is currently investigating for a 64-bit mode-only architecture referred to as x86S<p>I wish AMD had started this instead of Intel so they could call it AE86.

I can certainly see how this is beneficial. At the same time it seems like it&#x27;s a local optimum, to be eclipsed by other architectures. How much software really depends on 64-bit x86 architecture? And for how long?<p>A large amount of server software can be reasonably ported to a new architecture. New platforms can adopt new architectures (phone&#x2F;tablet, AR&#x2F;VR). General purpose software like a web browser abstracts hardware, as does very popular software (as Facebook had, and WeChat does).<p>Apple hasn&#x27;t been tied to architectures and transitioned a number of times, always optimizing the whole rather than optimizing intermediate&#x2F;stationary fixed points. If Intel is to make it to the next phase, it needs more than incremental improvements to compete. I hope that there&#x27;s a path&#x2F;future for AMD and Intel to evolve x86 and thrive but it won&#x27;t be a given or easy.

Do not want.<p>Did they not learn from the <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Intel_80376" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Intel_80376</a> or the infamous Itanic?<p>The almost 50 years of backwards compatibility (along with the accompanying creation of a huge amount of documentation) is one of the strongest reasons for choosing the x86&#x2F;PC.<p>With each feature removal, they weaken that argument and push their (prospective) customers towards reconsidering all the other competitive CPUs out there like ARM, MIPS, RISC-V, etc. that are not distant in performance.<p>Intel has made SoCs for phones, tablets, and other miscellaneous devices, but they weren&#x27;t PC-compatible. Not surprisingly, they were not well-received.<p>Related: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8091290" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8091290</a><p>Maybe it&#x27;s time for a CISC-V...?<p>Edit: apparently respecting history is not a popular opinion.

I wonder if Intel could open up x86s ISA. They need to transition to Foundry and there is no going back. Might as well open up x86s.