Microsoft launches 64-bit Windows

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re: sanity check

For some reason I remember MS doing the 64 bit stuff for Itanium first because AMD hadn't decided what they were going to do for 64 bit and as soon as they decided to extend the i386 instruction set and extend the registers for 64 bit MS decided to make a version for AMD.

wasn't that how it went? If so wasn't MS doing the exact opposite of collusion? In fact I would think if I'm right about this it would have strained relations between MS and Intel.

Close. Remember, the Itanium chip has an entirely DIFFERENT instruction set. When it came out, MS released a version of Windows that supported it and it alone. While it looks the same, works pretty much the same, and has 64 bit support, it wouldn't run on an AMD or Pentium chip based system. MS released the Itanium version because the Itanium chips were going on the market.

Then, AMD went the route of the Opteron and Athlon64 line. And Microsoft responded. They announced that they would build a 64 bit OS that would support the AMD extensions.

Then Intel decided to get into the act and went into AMD's offices and walked away with their R & D on how to add 64 bit support to the x86 chip. (It's all perfectly legal since the courts gave them the right to do so.)

It would seem that Intel had been going a bit nuts given that the way they've been building their Easy Bake Oven* chips (Prescott). But they've finally seen the AMD light. They've moved away from sheer speed (given that AMD's been trouncing the Pentium line AND running up to 1.2 GHz SLOWER than the same P4 chip) and are now once again playing follow the leader behind AMD in the Dual-Core arena.

There hasn't been any collusion. If anything, Microsoft's been taking their sweet time getting the 64 bit OS out to market. They want to make sure it works (for the most part) right from the start. Wouldn't be good PR to have a service pack released say, a week after the OS ships.

*Easy Bake Oven is a trademark of Kenner Corp.

Posted by: Wolfie2K3   Posted on: 04/25/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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