nixCraft 🐧
Dgar
AJ Sadauskas
@dgar @nixCraft And another comparison. Here's how GEOS on the Commodore 128 stacks up to Windows 11:
✅ Only needs 128 kb RAM
✅ No spyware
✅ No adware
✅ Word processing, spreadsheets, desktop publishing, and paint without an LLM
✅ Can natively play C64 games by using the command GO64
✅ Can also be booted into CP/M
✅ Only needs 128 kb RAM
✅ No spyware
✅ No adware
✅ Word processing, spreadsheets, desktop publishing, and paint without an LLM
✅ Can natively play C64 games by using the command GO64
✅ Can also be booted into CP/M
Kroc Camen@aj @dgar @nixCraft RISC OS had anti-aliased text in 1993. Mac OS gained it in 2000 and Windows in 2001.
Mark Fraser
deBaer@deBaer @Kroc @dgar @nixCraft In fairness, RISC OS had a massive headstart in that it was the OS thst came pre-installed on the Acorn Archimedes.
Why's that significant?
Well, the Archimedes architecture was basically an ARM CPU, with a GPU and a sound chip. Often as what we'd now describe as a system on a chip.
Well, it took a few decades, but basically the Archimedes architecture won.
Pretty much every smartphone and tablet is basically a superpowered Archimedes. So is every new Mac. All Raspberry Pis. Most Chromebooks.
Even many Windows or Linux PCs are Archimedes!
We all use the Archimedes now!
Why's that significant?
Well, the Archimedes architecture was basically an ARM CPU, with a GPU and a sound chip. Often as what we'd now describe as a system on a chip.
Well, it took a few decades, but basically the Archimedes architecture won.
Pretty much every smartphone and tablet is basically a superpowered Archimedes. So is every new Mac. All Raspberry Pis. Most Chromebooks.
Even many Windows or Linux PCs are Archimedes!
We all use the Archimedes now!
Daniel Barber
Andrew
Simon Brooke@danbarber @aj @armbytes @deBaer @Kroc @dgar @nixCraft It was very significantly faster. I tested them. I know.
You needed to spend A LOT of money on an x86 machine to run x86 code faster than a relatively cheap Archimedes could run it in emulation.
It could also compute factorial 1000 in two seconds at a time when the £20,000 AI workstation on which I was employed to work took twenty minutes to run the same code.
Pete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫@simon_brooke @danbarber @aj @armbytes @deBaer @Kroc @dgar @nixCraft
The ARM 2 was a nice CPU: clean well-thought-out instruction set, and what seemed like a generous bounty of 32-bit registers at the time (16 of them!), and yes, it was unusually fast compared to the x86 and 68xxx chips available around the same time.
@danbarber @deBaer @aj @dgar @nixCraft However, the fastest #Mac *is* an #Amiga! https://youtu.be/Jph0gxzL3UI
The Fastest Apple Mac is an Amiga - Fact or Fiction?
@danbarber @deBaer @aj @dgar @nixCraft And to round things out, there were two times when the fastest #PC was a #Mac, more recently at the launch of the M1 ARM Macs but also back in 2007 when, thanks to Vista, a MacBook Pro was a better PC than a PC: https://www.wired.com/2007/10/fastest-windows/
Fastest Windows Vista Notebook? A Mac
While some of the categories might make a prom queen weep ( heaviest ), the real surprise is the pick for the fastest Windows Vista machine: The 17" MacBook Pro: ...Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year--or for that matter, ever--is a Mac.
@Kroc @danbarber @aj @dgar @nixCraft The Xeon Mac Pros up to 5,1 (before the trash can form factor) were also the best Windows workstations, if you wanted a Windows workstation instead of using a Mac.
Chris Johnson@danbarber @cxj @Kroc @aj @dgar @nixCraft You can even run (the PowerPC version of) Windows (NT 3.51) on a Power Macintosh (G3 or G4, not G5) (with a lot of tinkering). ;-) https://github.com/Wack0/maciNTosh
@danbarber @aj @Kroc @dgar @nixCraft That existed. But there was also PCEm from Acorn, a software emulator that emulated a 80186 CPU, FPU, VGA card and even the very strange PC memory architecture so the emulated software could use EMS memory. On classic Archimedes systems, before RiscPC even existed. It could run fucking MS Windows! https://www.4corn.co.uk/archive/docs/PC%20Emulator%20User%20Guide-opt.pdf
@danbarber @deBaer @aj @Kroc @dgar @nixCraft While it is true you could put a 486 add in card into an ARM machine, it is also true that every Acorn ARM machine from 1988 onwards could run MS DOS in emulation (without any x86 hardware) faster than contemporary mass market x86 machines.
I know, I used them, I tested it.
There was a time that my A410 at home was faster at compute tasks than any computer the university in whose computing department I then worked owned.
Random_Seed 
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