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From: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Byte ordering (was: Whether something is RISC or not)
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2024 17:30:07 GMT
Organization: Institut fuer Computersprachen, Technische Universitaet Wien
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David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>On 04/10/2024 00:17, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> Compare this with the pain the x86 world went through, over a much longer
>> time, to move to 32-bit.
>
>The x86 started from 8-bit roots, and increased width over time, which 
>is a very different path.

Still, the question is why they did the 286 (released 1982) with its
protected mode instead of adding IA-32 to the architecture, maybe at
the start with a 386SX-like package and with real-mode only, or with
the MMU in a separate chip (like the 68020/68551).

>And much of the reason for it being a slow development is that the world 
>was held back by MS's lack of progress in using new features.  The 80386 
>was produced in 1986, but the MS world was firmly at 16-bit under it 
>gained a bit of 32-bit features with Windows 95.  (Windows NT was 32-bit 
>from 1993, and Win32s was from around the same time, but these were 
>relatively small in the market.)

At that time the market was moving much slower than nowadays.  Systems
with a 286 (and maybe even the 8088) were sold for a long time after
the 386 was introduced.  E.g., the IBM PS/1 Model 2011 was released in
1990 with a 10MHz 286, and the successor Model 2121 with a 386SX was
not introduced until 1992.  I think it's hard to blame MS for
targeting the machines that were out there.  And looking at
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2.1x>, Windows 2.1 in 1988
already was available in a Windows/386 version (but the programs were
running in virtual 8086 mode, i.e., were still 16-bit programs).

And it was not just MS who was going in that direction.  MS and IBM
worked on OS/2, and despite ambitious goals IBM insisted that the
software had to run on a 286.

The fact that the 386SX only appeared in 1988 also did not help.

- anton
-- 
'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'
  Mitch Alsup, <c17fcd89-f024-40e7-a594-88a85ac10d20o@googlegroups.com>