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.
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.