Bonum Certa Men Certa

x86 is Beyond Redemption, We Need Lean Software and Hardware That We Can Understand

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 12, 2024

Two CPUs, one pyramid. Another CPU in background.

Memory requirements of today's workstations typically jump substantially--from several to many megabytes--whenever there's a new software release. When demand surpasses capacity, it's time to buy add-on memory. When the system has no more extensibility, it's time to buy a new, more powerful workstation. Do increased performance and functionality keep pace with the increased demand for resources? Mostly the answer is no. The author contends that software's girth has surpassed its functionality, largely because hardware advances make this possible. He maintains that the way to streamline software lies in disciplined methodologies and a return to the essentials. He explores the reasons behind software's increasing heft and relates the history of Project Oberon as an example of how software should be built. Oberon's primary goal was to show that software can be developed with a fraction of the memory capacity and processor power usually required without sacrificing flexibility, functionality, or user convenience. The Oberon system has been in use since 1989, serving purposes that include document preparation, software development, and computer-aided design of electronic circuits, among many others. The system includes storage management, a file system, a window display manager, a network with servers, a compiler, and text, graphics, and document editors.

The Microsofters are busy pushing us like sheep (or some cattle) to x86, UEFI, and all sorts of other monstrosities. That's all they do these days. Seeing the crisis Microsoft is having, perhaps the old monopolies are seen as the last chance (before insolvency or bailouts, i.e. being rescued by taxpayers against their will/without their consent).

But we don't need x86 and UEFI. We know who needs these. We know who's served by their growing complexity. Not us. Since complexity is the enemy of security, expect more data breaches, not less, if greater complexity is embraced. Cost of securing things grows too.

x86 has a lot of issues, aside from the defects and severe security problems. x86 may have started small and simple; that hasn't been the case for decades, as the Moore-ists departed from simplicity and just doubled the number of gates (or shrank them some more to squeeze more of them per square milometer (instruments improved), irrespective of the resultant complexity, necessitated by the sheer scale). Silicon wafers did not grow, transistors are still used (ignore the hype and hypothetical nonsense), so we could have very tiny chips doing the same as before for a lot less energy. But that would be less profitable...

There are some AMD flaws [1, 2], an associate reminded us last week, in addition to the menagerie of Intel flaws, so "another post about how unsuited x86 is to real-world usage might be part of a RISC-V post."

"There is also the question the enormous amount of electricity wasted by x86."

"The RPi 2350 has RISC-V + Arm."

RISC-V made some headlines lately in relation to security, but such reports are rare. RISC-V isn't perfect - not even in the licensing sense - but it shows that some computing ("Lean Software") can be done on simple devices in 2024. I am using a RPi right now and our Web site uses about 100 times less resources than it did before the migration (away from WordPress, MediaWiki, and Drupal).

Almost nobody needs a "modern" x86 chip. The problem is the bloated software. We'll write more about this in the next article.

Pyramid of zen stones

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