modern stuff

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great ben via cctalk once stated:
> On 10/24/2018 12:31 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
> 
> >It's true that the original 8086 instruction set lives on with all its 
> >warts, and many more added over the years.  And yes, I guess that you 
> >*can* run them in 32 bit segmented mode if you're crazy.  But that's not 
> >how they are actually used.  The same applies to other successful 
> >architectures: MIPS, IBM 360.  Or programming languages -- consider C for 
> >a particularly horrid example, or worse yet C++.
> 
> All the computer science books push RISC now. EVEN KUTH has gone to the 
> DARK SIDE.

  The first RISC chips appears in the 80s, making them over 30 years old
now.  Even the MIPS and SPARC architecture (RISC based) are nearly (if not
already) 30 years old (I used systems with both in the early 90s).

  If anything, the DARK SIDE won in that we seem to be perpetually stuck
with a glorified 8080 (that is so complex that it contains an additional,
embedded no-quite-so-glorified 8080 to help it boot up! [1]).

  -spc (It kind of reminds of the MCP from TRON ... )

[1]	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Disabling_the_ME