Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
37 lines (19 loc) · 1.37 KB

other-architectures.md

File metadata and controls

37 lines (19 loc) · 1.37 KB

Other architectures

This tutorial focuses only on the x86 architecture families.

Here are some other popular architectures which you should have in mind as well:

PowerPC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC

Created by IBM, Motorola and Apple.

But IBM and Motorola are dying, Apple moved to Intel in 2005 for power efficiency, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 moved to x86-64 in 2013.

Used on Nintendo GameCube (2001) up to Wii U (2012), PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

MIPS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS_instruction_set

RISC. Was really hot in 80s, bought by SGI. More recently bought by Imagination Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagination_Technologies.

Used mostly on embedded systems, and notably video game consoles: Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2.

Officially supported on Android.

http://www.androidauthority.com/nintendo-64-android-l-microcontrollers-story-mips-538596/

Lextra story: http://probell.com/lexra/ It is not possible to patent an entire ISA as there is too much prior art, but companies patent instead specific novel instructions, and the compatibility break kills off reimplementors.

SPARC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC

Created by Sun for its operating system Solaris. Now owned and used by Oracle. Not used much by anyone else.

Was meant to be the ultimate RISC beats Intel and Windows coalition, but it failed.