I think you’re looking at it from a pure technological view, but that is only half equation.
No actually it never was. It was always a clumsy mess. The only reason IBM picked the X86, was because Intel also made the cut down i8088, that only had an 8 bit data-bus, which made the system easier and cheaper to make.
The “cheaper to make” was the part that made it pretty good for its day.
Market penetration and ubiquity were key factors in the overall advancement of computing around the world. The explosion of progress occurred when there was mostly one computing architecture, and that writing software for it would mean a huge market with a long life. Most importantly, long enough to make back your initial investment and earn healthy profit.
The modest Arm with a tenth the transistors was 4-5 times faster than a full fledged 33 Mhz fully 32 bit 80386DX!
And with that performance advantage, why is it x86 continued to advance selling more and more units eventually becoming the standard for desktop and server computing? Market penetration.
Back then hardware and software ecosystems were closed. You could learn on a Wang, but that made you useless on VAX. Your SunOS on Sparc knowledge wouldn’t help you very much on Silicon Graphics IRIX on MIPS.
Contrast that with your DOS knowledge on IBM 5150 was almost identical Compaq Deskpro.
Today X86 is considered pretty good on the desktop, because all the competition has disappeared. Alpha, Motorola, Sparc, MIPS, PowerPC. X86 was never very good compared to any of those.
Most of those architectures you mention were workstation, server, or mainframe class CPUs and not desktop. Again, from a purely technical view, sure, they were better, but how good is a CPU that you can never afford to buy?
Even the Motorola (68000 series) and later the PowerPC (for desktops 601 etc) were only in computers that were far more expensive than their equivalent x86 counterparts. It wasn’t for a lack of computing power, but rather those brands wanted exclusive control of their hardware and would crush any attempt to make clones lowering the pricepoint. That did NOT serve the end users or the market, which is largely why I think they failed.
We got the worst OS with MS-Dos and later Windows, and we got the worst architecture with X86.
We got a single CPU architecture and OS compatibility for almost 40 years. If we hadn’t, we would have taken much longer to evolve to where we are today of being able to change out the underlying CPU with lighter weight changes for OS support. Today Linux will run on nearly every CPU architecture including the common x86, ARM, and now even RISC-V. It would have been a much longer path had we had multiple dominant computing architectures all vying for resources.
I remember standing in front of a wall of boxed video games sorting through them, getting excited to see a title, only to see it wasn’t for my platform. Tandy, Apple II, Atari, TI, Commodore, and all the various iterations in between! A game written for Commodore PET couldn’t run on Commodore VIC-20, and the VIC-20 game couldn’t run on the Commodore 64. X86 changed all that. The same game that ran on the 8088 could run on the 286, 386, 486, Pentium, etc. We needed all of that to get where we are today.
The “cheaper to make” was the part that made it pretty good for its day.
No it didn’t, it was so slow it wasn’t faster than 8 bit CP/M systems at the time. The original PC had very little advantage from being 16 bit, and everybody else went directly from 8 to 32 bit. But IBM was bigger than everybody else combined back then, and their support and the arrival of cheaper clones, made it an industry standard disregarding the platform was horrible, but because it was well supported.
And with that performance advantage, why is it x86 continued to advance selling more and more units eventually becoming the standard for desktop and server computing? Market penetration.
I already wrote that Intel was protected by the Wintel monopoly, later when mobile became a much bigger market, that monopoly did NOT help Intel, And Intel spend as much as Arms entire revenue on pushing Atom for an entire decade, and even had the production advantage back then. And despite that Intel was not able to compete against Arm, on platforms like Android that actually had X86 compatibility.
Most of those architectures you mention were workstation, server, or mainframe class
No, Arm was in desktop, but the company did not have the clout to compete.
Motorola was in Macintosh, Atari and Amiga.
PowerPC was in Macintosh and Playstation 3.
That the others were workstation and server does not change that among them all, Intel was inferior in every way.
I don’t understand how you can argue a point that X86 was ever any good, have you ever tried programming assembly on it and on any of the competitors?
Have you ever compared systems from back then on how well they actually worked? For sure the PC was awful. AND MS-DOS was the worst OS in existence at the time.
With Microsoft copying CP/M but removing security features, that has made MS-DOS and Windows the least protected and easiest systems to infects with viruses, causing a decades long nightmare.
Have you ever compared systems from back then on how well they actually worked? For sure the PC was awful. AND MS-DOS was the worst OS in existence at the time.
Yes, I lived through that period and have firsthand experience.
Most of those architectures you mention were workstation, server, or mainframe class
No
I think you missed the part of my post where I called out PPC 601 and Moto 68000 in desktops. PPC was also in workstation and server grade machines including IBM iSeries Midrange systems.
I don’t understand how you can argue a point that X86 was ever any good, have you ever tried programming assembly on it and on any of the competitors?
You’re still arguing technical superiority, when that isn’t the primary factor for folks that bought computers. Consumers didn’t want to throw away their entire computer and software library when going to the next iteration of a company’s product. PC Clones made PC computing affordable. Commodore with its Amiga fought against its only clone Atari ST. Apple quickly squashed any Mac clone makers. These companies got greedy because they wanted to sell hardware at a premium price and control their entire ecosystems, just like they before on prior platforms. They starved their pipeline of younger/poorer customers that would eventually be able to afford the premium products. PC had no such issue and won the computing war of the 80s and 90s.
I think you’re looking at it from a pure technological view, but that is only half equation.
The “cheaper to make” was the part that made it pretty good for its day.
Market penetration and ubiquity were key factors in the overall advancement of computing around the world. The explosion of progress occurred when there was mostly one computing architecture, and that writing software for it would mean a huge market with a long life. Most importantly, long enough to make back your initial investment and earn healthy profit.
And with that performance advantage, why is it x86 continued to advance selling more and more units eventually becoming the standard for desktop and server computing? Market penetration.
Back then hardware and software ecosystems were closed. You could learn on a Wang, but that made you useless on VAX. Your SunOS on Sparc knowledge wouldn’t help you very much on Silicon Graphics IRIX on MIPS.
Contrast that with your DOS knowledge on IBM 5150 was almost identical Compaq Deskpro.
Most of those architectures you mention were workstation, server, or mainframe class CPUs and not desktop. Again, from a purely technical view, sure, they were better, but how good is a CPU that you can never afford to buy?
Even the Motorola (68000 series) and later the PowerPC (for desktops 601 etc) were only in computers that were far more expensive than their equivalent x86 counterparts. It wasn’t for a lack of computing power, but rather those brands wanted exclusive control of their hardware and would crush any attempt to make clones lowering the pricepoint. That did NOT serve the end users or the market, which is largely why I think they failed.
We got a single CPU architecture and OS compatibility for almost 40 years. If we hadn’t, we would have taken much longer to evolve to where we are today of being able to change out the underlying CPU with lighter weight changes for OS support. Today Linux will run on nearly every CPU architecture including the common x86, ARM, and now even RISC-V. It would have been a much longer path had we had multiple dominant computing architectures all vying for resources.
I remember standing in front of a wall of boxed video games sorting through them, getting excited to see a title, only to see it wasn’t for my platform. Tandy, Apple II, Atari, TI, Commodore, and all the various iterations in between! A game written for Commodore PET couldn’t run on Commodore VIC-20, and the VIC-20 game couldn’t run on the Commodore 64. X86 changed all that. The same game that ran on the 8088 could run on the 286, 386, 486, Pentium, etc. We needed all of that to get where we are today.
No it didn’t, it was so slow it wasn’t faster than 8 bit CP/M systems at the time. The original PC had very little advantage from being 16 bit, and everybody else went directly from 8 to 32 bit. But IBM was bigger than everybody else combined back then, and their support and the arrival of cheaper clones, made it an industry standard disregarding the platform was horrible, but because it was well supported.
I already wrote that Intel was protected by the Wintel monopoly, later when mobile became a much bigger market, that monopoly did NOT help Intel, And Intel spend as much as Arms entire revenue on pushing Atom for an entire decade, and even had the production advantage back then. And despite that Intel was not able to compete against Arm, on platforms like Android that actually had X86 compatibility.
No, Arm was in desktop, but the company did not have the clout to compete.
Motorola was in Macintosh, Atari and Amiga.
PowerPC was in Macintosh and Playstation 3.
That the others were workstation and server does not change that among them all, Intel was inferior in every way.
I don’t understand how you can argue a point that X86 was ever any good, have you ever tried programming assembly on it and on any of the competitors?
Have you ever compared systems from back then on how well they actually worked? For sure the PC was awful. AND MS-DOS was the worst OS in existence at the time.
With Microsoft copying CP/M but removing security features, that has made MS-DOS and Windows the least protected and easiest systems to infects with viruses, causing a decades long nightmare.
Yes, I lived through that period and have firsthand experience.
I think you missed the part of my post where I called out PPC 601 and Moto 68000 in desktops. PPC was also in workstation and server grade machines including IBM iSeries Midrange systems.
You’re still arguing technical superiority, when that isn’t the primary factor for folks that bought computers. Consumers didn’t want to throw away their entire computer and software library when going to the next iteration of a company’s product. PC Clones made PC computing affordable. Commodore with its Amiga fought against its only clone Atari ST. Apple quickly squashed any Mac clone makers. These companies got greedy because they wanted to sell hardware at a premium price and control their entire ecosystems, just like they before on prior platforms. They starved their pipeline of younger/poorer customers that would eventually be able to afford the premium products. PC had no such issue and won the computing war of the 80s and 90s.