Steve Jobs wrote:
System architectures shift every decade
In the 70s we had 4-bit and then 8-bit systems.
Plus the outlier in Motorola 6- series CPUs.
The domination of Intel and Motorola
In the 80s we saw two generations of cpu. The first being advanced 8-bit and the second being 12-bit servers. The rise or risc. The first 16- and 32-bit cpus.
Where Intel, Motorola, and TI shined blindingly. But IBM was lurking behind the press pages.
The 90s gave us amazing leaps! AMD and Intel with 32-bit processors. IBM and SUN gave RISC life. Acorn pushed RISC to the limit and then with Acorn licensing IBM with Power gave risc it’s greatest moments.
2000s—With AMD64 AMD proved that they were the innovative one. Even if Intel continued to outperform in non-industrial use. AMD64 is licensed by Intel and is the basis for all modern “x86-64” and “x64”cpus.
TI and IBM put out 128-bit failures. HP comes up with. 256-bit processor that is basically a 128-bit bit-slice unit. And it works
2010s. Intel falters. Just like in the early 90s Intel fails to innovate. They copy, and out right steal, from AMD and others. By 2012 the core cpus prove useless for crypto. By 2016 Intel is barely hanging on... fudging numbers and publishing fake benchmarks.
In 2018 Intel, in Intel’s top (of 4) i9 series, fails to match the AMD R5/5000 series (2nd/4 levels) and falls behind for the third time in its history. And possibly the final nail in the ancient intel coffin.
2020s
Intel pinnacle i9 series fails to match Ryzen 3 (sub-budget sub-entry level) chips in compression and crypto benchmarks. 24-core Xeon chips chosen by Apple for the Mac Pro fall behind the R5 series AMD chips. ARM architecture makes up the world’s fastest and most powerful super computer.
So;
“hey Lost! Got a point?!?”
Yes. More than A!
Android and iOS have been ARM since day one. Microsoft has supported risc since NT 3.5. Even if the public didn’t know. ARM since CE in 1998.
Windows 7, 8, RT, and 10 all have ARM versions. Linux has been on ARM and RISC in general since day one due to the Unix origins.
Apple going to RISC makes sense. Despite my misgivings regarding ARM.
A quick internet search for me will show some very heated discussions prior to WWDC regarding ARM. Personally, based on nearly 3-decades of hacker culture, I think ARM is the lowest common denominator when it comes to RISC implementation!
But as I’ve always maintained... if anyone is going to pull this off it is going to be, no, must be, Apple!
My point?
Look forward to scraping x86 systems. Intel is dead and has been since 2018. IBM and Acorn and Apple are the future.
Apple has taken a page from the Jobs playbook and said FU to the entire world!
And once again they WILL succeed!