68k details

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by roondar

And I'd wager this also shows that a lot of people were very happy with the 68000 and successors. If it had failed back in the 1990's, you wouldn't be able to still buy them new today.

68Ks are used in military and aerospace applications. Talk to @stedy. Modern availability Is nothing to do with happiness. It’s about keeping aircraft flying.

Happiness is far too subjective a measurement to start using in this sort of discussion.... it’s rhetoric that can’t be proven either way.

EDIT: I suppose the passengers whose flights are on time are happy. But I don’t think they care about the ISA

[roondar]

Originally Posted by plasmab

68Ks are used in military and aerospace applications. Talk to @stedy. Modern availability Is nothing to do with happiness. It’s about keeping aircraft flying.

Happiness is far too subjective a measurement to start using in this sort of discussion.... it’s rhetoric that can’t be proven either way.

Oh, I agree happiness is a silly metric - I wasn't the one to actually start using it as an argument. My post was actually a reply to the happiness point and was intended to show that happiness is very subjective and that you can twist and turn this 'metric' until it fits what you want as a result.

That said, I do find it amusing that you can still get new 68000's. Regardless of what they're used for

EDIT: I suppose the passengers whose flights are on time are happy. But I don’t think they care about the ISA

I would argue that the people who selected the 68000 in the first place probably did, though. But again, happiness is a silly metric and I doubt they selected the 68000 based on being 'happy'.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by roondar

I would argue that the people who selected the 68000 in the first place probably did, though. But again, happiness is a silly metric and I doubt they selected the 68000 based on being 'happy'.

You mean you don’t select airlines by their aircraft CPU ISA?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by plasmab

You mean you don’t select airlines by their aircraft CPU ISA?

I won't fly anything that isn't fully powered by a 68000, 6502/6510 or Z80 (68010+/65816/Z80000 do not count!). Entertainment system included. Combination of these three CPU's is also allowed as long as this means a CPS-1 or CPS-2 based arcade is included in the entertainment package...

Hence I never fly

[Megol]

Is this thread still going?!? And with the same "quality" argumentation too.

The 68k is obviously the better ISA compared to x86, more registers, flexibility, address modes, and a lot more. But the x86 isn't a bad ISA even in the pre-386 form.
Both 68k and x86 have architectural warts, bad extensions, quirks requiring extra hardware to execute fast and non-orthogonal parts.

Aren't there more relevant things to argue? Like what parts of each architecture would be worth preserving in a theoretical new design or if it will rain this date next year?

@roondar
That is a bad argument. At least a few years ago one could buy 8086 compatible ROHS chips and I found a 8088 compatible sold now with a simple search. Most known old IC designs are available from specialized producers of legacy chips.

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by Megol

Aren't there more relevant things to argue? Like what parts of each architecture would be worth preserving in a theoretical new design or if it will rain this date next year?

This is indeed a more relevant thing to argue. You start ?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Megol

@roondar
That is a bad argument. At least a few years ago one could buy 8086 compatible ROHS chips and I found a 8088 compatible sold now with a simple search. Most known old IC designs are available from specialized producers of legacy chips.

My Google-fu is apparently weaker than I hoped as I can't find the 8088 you mentioned.

Anyway, you are missing the point of what I was trying to get across.

The point was/is about how silly it is to argue about 'happiness' when talking about the relative success of a CPU because this is extremely subjective and thus not useful. I said this exact thing just a few posts up already

[plasmab]

I haven’t seen very many non subjective arguments here. It’s all rhetoric.

I speak Scots Gaelic. It has fewer words, fewer letters, a more complex grammar than most languages (excl Finnish and Hungarian) and very few users (approx 30,000 worldwide). Is it better than English?.. I think so. But my arguments are all subjective.

I could rant and make excuses about why it’s not more popular. Or I STFU and just use it.

Argument sound familiar at all?

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by plasmab

I haven’t seen very many non subjective arguments here. It’s all rhetoric.

It's not completely rhetoric when code is shown. But that's too rare here, indeed.

Originally Posted by plasmab

I speak Scots Gaelic. It has fewer words, fewer letters, a more complex grammar than most languages (excl Finnish and Hungarian) and very few users (approx 30,000 worldwide). Is it better than English?.. I think so. But my arguments are all subjective.

I could rant and make excuses about why it’s not more popular. Or I STFU and just use it.

Argument sound familiar at all?

But, we all know that French is the best language

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by meynaf

But, we all know that French is the best language

Merde! But oddly one of the songs i've sung to my little one since he was a baby has this line in it....

"'S a chuidich an Fhraing gu buaidh"

Translate: Who helped the French to win.

Still a little Jacobite in me i guess.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by plasmab

I haven’t seen very many non subjective arguments here. It’s all rhetoric.

I seem to remember some people writing and comparing source code to show that some of the claims made here were not so 'subjective' but rather just plain false. Mainly because I was one of these people.

Now, it may just be me, but I consider that to be slightly more fact based than silly statements about people being 'happy' or not.

I speak Scots Gaelic. It has fewer words, fewer letters, a more complex grammar than most languages (excl Finnish and Hungarian) and very few users (approx 30,000 worldwide). Is it better than English?.. I think so. But my arguments are all subjective.

I could rant and make excuses about why it’s not more popular. Or I STFU and just use it.

Argument sound familiar at all?

Well, at least be honest and mention that these rants and excuses are happening at the local Scots Gaelic language appreciation and debating club after some people came in and adamantly stated that English was objectively better in every way that counts

In either case, the ship about popularity has sailed ages ago - there is fairly little point in arguing that.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by roondar

Well, at least be honest and mention that these rants and excuses are happening at the local Scots Gaelic language appreciation and debating club after some people came in and adamantly stated that English was objectively better in every way that counts

You mean my kids school? no he's not getting English until he's 7.

In either case, the ship about popularity has sailed ages ago - there is fairly little point in arguing that.

Tell that to my grandmother .. she stubbornly refuses to speak English. :P

[roondar]

Originally Posted by plasmab

Tell that to my grandmother .. she stubbornly refuses to speak English. :P

Now I could be wrong, but isn't Scots Gaelic an official language in Scotland?

That does change things a bit - I'm pretty sure some people here would love a law enforcing the use of their favourite ISA

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by roondar

Now I could be wrong, but isn't Scots Gaelic an official language in Scotland?


That does change things a bit - I'm pretty sure some people here would love a law enforcing the use of their favourite ISA

Its one of the 5 official languages in the UK. Local authorities can use (by majority vote) Gaelic as their official language. For example Eilean Siar is the legal name of the MP/MSP district where I grew up. You can get educated in Gaelic entirely from age 3.

However the ISA of Gaelic will drive most normal people demented. There is massive redundancy in the ISA for the description of rain and sheep.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by plasmab

Its one of the 5 official languages in the UK. Local authorities can use (by majority vote) Gaelic as their official language. For example Eilean Siar is the legal name of the MP/MSP district where I grew up. You can get educated in Gaelic entirely from age 3.

However the ISA of Gaelic will drive most normal people demented. There is massive redundancy in the ISA for the description of rain and sheep.

Oh well, it's still better than English - that ISA is a fragmented mess. I hear they even resorted to adding whole chunks of the French ISA into it a few versions back!

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by roondar

Oh well, it's still better than English - that ISA is a fragmented mess. I hear they even resorted to adding whole chunks of the French ISA into it a few versions back!

Yes and quite a bit of Gaelic too. e.g. English phase/word "smashing" is derived from "S'Math Sinn" which means "Thats good".

More recently "Galore" was borrowed.

Honestly its like AMD and Intel adding their MMX and AMD64 extensions.

EDIT: I'm derailing this thread for some comic relief. Feel free to prune.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by plasmab

Happiness is far too subjective a measurement to start using in this sort of discussion.... it’s rhetoric that can’t be proven either way.

So just stick to things you can 'prove' with measurements, and ignore those you can't?

In reality people tend to go with stuff they are 'happy' with and avoid things they aren't - even when it's 'technically' superior. Our economy and society as a whole is largely based on creating happiness, and products rarely become popular on technical specs alone. The IBM PC would have become an industry standard no matter what CPU it used, because "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".

On technical specs the original PC sucked. What people were effectively buying was a brand name, trusting that IBM wouldn't produce a dud (if anyone else had marketed it the PC probably would have been a dud, just like other 8088 based machines of the time). IOW the IBM PC sold on 'happiness' rather than objective measurements.

Even if 8086 could beat 68000 in some benchmark it wouldn't matter to me - because working with 68k makes me happier. Happiness is ultimately the most important parameter, even if it can't be measured with the precision of a code benchmark.

[meynaf]

In some way happiness is already counted in (handwritten) code benchmarks. Coders spend the time to optimise their code to death, only on architectures they like...

[plasmab]

Nah..

[ Show youtube player ]

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by plasmab

However the ISA of Gaelic will drive most normal people demented. There is massive redundancy in the ISA for the description of rain and sheep.