Author: Jeremiah Penery
Date: 15:05:34 03/06/03
Go up one level in this thread
On March 05, 2003 at 22:56:50, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On March 04, 2003 at 21:55:55, Jeremiah Penery wrote: > >>On March 04, 2003 at 11:23:17, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >The precise specification is that written by Intel, which is my point. A >program with timing loops is bad programming, but it still works on Intel >boxes if it is developed there. It won't work on something that behaves It wouldn't work on the same Intel CPU with twice the clockspeed. >differently. But, back to the _real_ point. A cpu that supposedly competes >with the PII should be _compatible_ with the PII at any level of abstraction >a user might want. All the way up to the output from a compiler that targets >the PII processor with an executable. The K6 failed that test and led to some >bad vibes. I asked already whether they claimed specific P2 compatibility (which they could fail), or just general compatibility (which they meet, because they properly report the CPU capability in CPUID). >>If you made patented advances in Crafty, which required licenses for the >>opponents to use, your window would be eternity if you wanted it to be. That's >>the situation Intel is in. > >And??? The window is there for the leader whether there are licensing issues >or not. My point is that the window would be FOREVER if Intel chooses not to license. >>>When Intel announces something "new" they have a window that stretches for >>>however long it >>>takes the opposition to implement the changes. Or if they choose not to, they >>>can choose to >>>make those "changes" a big deal in advertising which will hurt the competition. >>>So the >>>followers have to follow for the most part. >> >>AMD _can't_ implement SSE (or whatever) unless Intel licenses it to them. If it >>was that big of a deal, Intel wouldn't license it at all. > > >Why are we off onto SSE? It hasn't been a problem. Cmov _was_ a problem >that was documented and mentioned in many discussion groups. We were talking about any general changes Intel makes to the ISA. I would certainly include SSE in that category. >>>Right. Don't you think if they were _exact_ clones, just cheaper, they would be >>>selling >>>_more_? >> >>If that were so, WalMart brand tissues would outsell Kleenex, but I doubt they >>do. It's about brand name. You would buy Intel anyway, and so would a whole >>lot of other people, just because they're Intel. > >Absolutely _wrong_. We buy them because the name is "intel" _and_ we have had >good success using Intel. They could be called stinkems instead of Intel and >if the reputation had been built over the 25-30 years of microprocessors, then >we'd all be buying stinkems instead. The name is tied to success, and _that_ >is what leads me back to them. I will occasionally try new things, but when >things are critical, I want what works _first_ and I'll try something new when >I'm playing, to see if it works. That's the point. Even if AMD made identical clones, you would probably still buy Intel, because they have a good reputation. Again, I give the example about Kleenex. Why do you suppose Kleenex probably sells far more than WalMart tissues, even though WalMart tissues are identical, and a lot cheaper? >>They were once follower who became market leader - the thing you said was >>impossible. That's the point of this statement. I wasn't saying anything about >>compatibility. > > >Again you put words in my mouth. A "follower" _can_ become a leader. In the _I_ put words in _your_ mouth? Ha ha ha. Let me quote you once again: "And 2nd place is all that a follower can _ever_ reach..." >1950's and early 1960's, Univac was the number one data processing vendor >around. They were displaced by IBM in the middle to late 1960's. So it >happens. But it happend (in the case of IBM) because they were _not_ >following trying to make Univac boxes. They made their own architecture, >proved it was better and cheaper, and dominated the market. > >AMD apparently thinks it is more profitable to follow rather than to design >a _good_ architecture that would catch on. Heaven knows the X86 ISA is a piece >of trash. Kludge piled on top of kludge. But it is what we have right now. AMD is smart enough to know that designing a new ISA will fail. It has always failed. Alpha failed on the desktop, despite being far technically superior. PPC has pretty much failed. MIPS, HP-PA, SPARC never even really tried. It would take a miracle to overcome the x86 user base and supplant it with another ISA. Why do you think even _Intel_ hasn't tried it yet? >How can they innovate when they have to faithfully follow the intel ISA? 3dnow >is _dead_, for example. Its dead because the ISA is intel's and nobody wants to >write a piece of code that is AMD-only, because the intel side of the market is >_way_ bigger. I already mentioned x86-64 having lots of support, but you dismissed it and claimed we were only talking about IA32.
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