ARM's Secret Weapon (History of ARM Part 2)

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SideQuest, What happened to Acorn Computers?: nebula.tv/vide...
As a computer legend rally to save the most important invention of their company from bankruptcy they bet it all on one crazy gamble.
Sources:
archive.compute...
archive.compute...
Credits:
Research and Writing: LowSpecAlex
Voice over: LowSpecAlex
Editing: LowSpecAlex
3D animation: Windy, Divye
Art: Maiku no Koe
Spanish Translation, Audio editing and QA: Henrique von Buren
Thumbnail design: Maiku no Koe
Voice of Robin Saxby: ‪@DanStormVO‬
VA director and sourcing: Jesús Hernández/Dubbing Home
Special VA guest: ‪@MedlifeCrisis‬
Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.c...
Stock Footage from Getty

[@Xilefian]

Important detail: thumb isn't 16-bit processing, it's still 32-bit, it's just 16-bit instructions.The benefit is you just need a 16-bit bus, and 16-bit instructions tend to have slightly better code density so take up less storage (which was expensive)

[@Xilefian]

There's also rumours that thumb was designed for Nintendo first, because most processors at the time were not fixed-width instruction, and Arm was fixed-width 32-bit, Arm instructions consumed 50% more storage than other instruction sets; not ideal for those expensive ROM chips with game cartridges on a home console like the SNES ... The SNES also has an 8-bit cartridge bus, so 32-bit instructions across that would have been horribly slow. EDIT: See the video "A History of The ARM Microprocessor | Dave Jaggar" at time code 28:40

[@DingDongDood]

woah cool an MC dev

[@LowSpecGamer]

Correct. I had to simplify massively to fit it into a narrative

[@mrmimeisfunny]

Either way nobody can really pinpoint the exact trait that determines the bitness of the CPU. The 68008 is probably the best example of ambiguous bitness. There's also the Z80 with its 4-bit ALU, 8-bit data and 16-bit registers. So yeah, thumb mode... 16-bit... sure... I'll accept it.

[@kurtwinter4422]

When TI launched a 16 bit CPU on an 8 bit bus with the TI 99/4A they hamstrung their own design

[@MedlifeCrisis]

The 3D animations are just gorgeous

[@ExperimentIV]

so fun to hear you in this one, Rohin!

[@tanmaypanadi1414]

my favorite cardiologist ❤️

[@harriehausenman8623]

Well put! Couldn't agree more 🤗

[@LemSportsinterviews]

it personally hurts my feelings that these videos don't seem to get as much attention as your old content. you're one of my favorite channels, ever - nobody's doing what you do. i love this! never stop!

[@LowSpecGamer]

On average these videos are getting more views than the old content

[@der.Schtefan]

Don't forget that he is also on Nebula now.

[@AlbandAquino]

KZbin twisted form of "engagement". That's why I'm liking those videos and posting a comment. Just to make sure that like like minded individuals are given the "chance" to see that video. That being said, the most wild CPU I've used was the DEC Alpha. Running a mere 33MHz, that thing was more powerful than the Pentium 90. I was designing 3D scene on the Pentium, but running my rendering software on the Alpha because it was years before its peers. Good ol' times...

[@sovo1212]

@@LowSpecGamer still we need the original LowSpecGamer now more than ever, with The Last of Us, Hogwarts Legacy and RE4 Remake.

[@LowSpecGamer]

I no longer know how to modify games like that and I am so burned out of the concept that I don't even own a PC anymore.

[@thedualscreengamer]

Imagine having a peaceful day. You go to the airport to catch a plane. Then get on the plane to have a nice, smooth plane ride. All is good and calm. You're ready to relax on your plane ride until the person next to you starts doing a sales pitch.

[@RubiGMM]

That thumbnail has so many layers it's unbelivable

[@RubiGMM]

for those who want to know, it's Jotaro from the 3rd episode of Stone Ocean's anime adaptation, but dressed as freaking Mario holding a cpu it's amazing

[@metawolf987]

Yare yare daze

[@metawolf987]

Imagine using a CPU as a Stand.

[@cwtrain]

For real. I sat there studying the picture for nearly a full minute before I even played the video. "... Is that? Ha! Glorious!" Total aces on that one.

[@Coldsteak]

@@RubiGMM and the cpu is an arm cpu and he is holding the arm cpu with his arm

[@Thelango99]

ARM is currently attempting to raise licensing costs by basing the fee on the entire device rather than just the CPU.

[@Thelango99]

Pressure to do this is coming from softbank btw.

[@LowSpecGamer]

You either die a hero…

[@clou09]

great. let the Risc-V arms race begin then

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

People were wondering how RISC-V could make inroads against the ARM juggernaut. Now we know: ARM itself will give it a helping hand...

[@SlightlyUnwell]

​@@LowSpecGamer Or live long enough to see yourself not become a company.

[@kyoudaiken]

And now ARM made the worst decision they could ever make: Raising the licensing prices at a time where RISC-V is gaining a lot of traction... 😖

[@namehere5364]

can risc-v cooperate with common gpus?

[@haloshiroe]

@@namehere5364 you can actually! at least with AMD since the drivers are open source and integrated into the linux kernel meaning they compile to risc. It's still early days, but many of the basic issues are not present, despite that it's still usable. Nvidia will probably lag very far behind as their support for anything novel always lags behind. (especially their atrocious drivers)

[@RazielXT]

@@haloshiroe *anything novel that isnt theirs

[@kyoudaiken]

@@namehere5364 Yes. You can add PCIe as well. Also, most code today is written on higher languages since compilers have gotten way better in creating optimized code for diverse architectures. It will take a while until they can deal with RISC-V just as well but the day will come and then most software can easily be recompiled for RISC-V architectures. The only thing that makes me worry a bit is that RISC-V could fragment like crazy because it's open.

[@kyoudaiken]

@@haloshiroe NVidia is working on making their drivers open source.

[@harriehausenman8623]

This is what documentaries should be like! Thanks for telling this immensly interesting and equally important part of history. Long Live Nebula!

[@ildalailamer8341]

As an italian, i find your making fun of our accent extremely amusing, please do more!

[@LowSpecGamer]

Oh… ok!

[@tanmaypanadi1414]

@@LowSpecGamer resist the urge

[@karanpatel294]

I love this series, waiting for the next video as soon as I finish watching one. Kudos to you!!!!

[@joesheepy]

Fascinating stuff that reveals some of the giants on whose shoulders we stand on.

[@karanpatel294]

@@joesheepy Exactly, this series made me realise how great deal of a thing processors are.

[@cozy_kat]

An interesting tidbit you miss, even before the Newton a team within Apple was evaluating the ARM2 for an Apple II successor codenamed Möbius

[@MaddTheSane]

That sounds interesting. Do you have a source on that?

[@bfapple]

@@MaddTheSaneyes I would be intrigued too.

[@a4e69636b]

Googling did not bring up any Apple II information. So hoping there is information on this computer somewhere.

[@_..-.._..-.._]

You drop that and then never respond? Must be lying I guess 😑

[@AndreiRObertYTB]

you're telling me you're the guy who taught me how to disable shadows in gta5 to run it on my old ass laptop with 25 extra fps?? damn, nice storytelling, nice animations, nice 3d models, great content, keep it coming! you got me back as a subscriber and now i have something to binge watch

[@ok-tr1nw]

Arm was such a great innovation but after the huge mistake they did with their new licensing contracts i think their replacement will be risc V Hopefully we'll see a lowspecgamer vid on it like 10 years in the future

[@Jagermonsta]

one of my favourite youtubers, i love the style of story telling, and the drawing/animations are unique and add to the story better than stock photos ever could. almost have me considering a nebula subscription... almost

[@JohnIrwin]

Using the "Chris Abroad" music to punctuate the move to Japan was genius level editing. Great video!

[@HirokaAkita]

I once saw a "Virgin Chad" meme. In "Chad", or "Chad reality", it said how Fiction had to be predictable, and how Real world sometimes is so weird, that all things are almost random but deeply connected somehow. This video, in some ways, shows the Gameboy series going full circle.

[@ingenierocristian]

As a Colombian, I appreciate your videos in english because it helps a lot not only to understand the origins of our technology but, to practice my english, I ❤ It.

[@LowSpecGamer]

Tengo versiones en español por si acaso

[@jamesburke2759]

Your videos are fascinating. I love the artwork and the way you talk really puts excitement into the characters. even stuff i know all about im keen to watch your take on it.

[@Valery0p5]

I KNEW IT WAS OLIVETTI Honestly is really sad both Acorn and Olivetti don't exist anymore because they couldn't speak the same language...

[@BavarianM]

Olivetti does exist

[@Underestimated37]

You know until I started working at a bank here I’d never heard of Olivetti (and one I did I cursed their names for years) but afterwards I found little hints of the companies influence all through the tech world.

[@GsrItalia]

@@BavarianM yes... but no. During the history, Olivetti brand took different paths, and now the former Olivetti SPA is... TIM Spa, one of biggest ISP and phone provider in Italy. Story is really... twisted and tangled, but might be worth of some time reading. Because before becoming owner (than the company itself) Olivetti was 50% shareholder of a company who detaine the two firsts (in time sequence) competitor of TIM (at the time, Telecom Italia): Omnitel (now owned by Vodafone) and Infostrada (now part of WindTre, owned by HutchinsonWampoa). You can still buy "olivetti" branded device, mostly MFP and printers, but normally are badge-engineered products of other manifacturers.

[@amirsaid]

Hi there! I just wanted to leave a comment and let you know how much I'm loving your new content. This video is particularly great - I found it really informative and engaging. Your channel always manages to strike the perfect balance between being entertaining and educational, and I really appreciate that. Keep up the awesome work, and I'm excited to see what you have in store for us in the future!

[@speedsterh]

Furber, Wilson were some of the most famous people of that era for ARM. But I didn't know how Saxby was crucial for the survival of the company and forecast what would be the future of computing. Thank you very much for this brilliant video !

[@bohemondricard9091]

It felt like a huge flex for me when I actually understood what the dramatization of Elserino Piol said XD. From memory: "The most important thing for a company in our position is that cost reduction can help improve cash flow"

[@Valery0p5]

Reject monolinguism Diventa poliglotta

[@RobWARDLTB]

I copped a flogging in 1994-5 for running a couple classrooms of first BBC32K micros on Econet, and at the time I had built up the labs into ARM powered RISCPCs, A3000's etc. The Education Department across the state was pushing Intel/beige boxes as the answer with similar laptops. The intelligentsia around at the time were decrying the Acorn machines and basically white-anted me to get rid of them. And go Intel PC. I kept my RISCPC at home until 2002 and really enjoyed it. I did all my work on an Intel based laptop and just sucked it up. However if I could wind the clock back 30 years I would gladly force them to stick this video up their kyber where the sun don't shine. The heat I took from those turkeys was soul destroying and so wrong. RISC was never going to compete with CISC, arrogant pack of meat heads. I hope they are enjoying their mobile phones!!

[@srvuk]

Another great delve into history.

[@pepemiko]

I just want to say, I really enjoyed this and your other videos. And you're the only creator who managed to entice me into subscribing to Nebula.

[@ketrub]

this series continues being absolutely fantastic getting nebula to watch the side videos is getting enticing

[@ketrub]

oh i did end up getting nebula btw

[@DanStormVO]

The thumbnail: LETS-A GO! Me: LETS-A GO!!

[@Mechness]

As someone who was quite familiar with the various Acorn computer models in the 1990s, the 3D model of an Archimedes at the beginning of the video is quite jarring to me as it's obviously a RiscPC case with an A400 series front piece stuck onto it and an AKF12 monitor. Anachronistic! :-D I mean the overly-yellow BBC micros I forgive, because surviving ones have yellowed significantly with age (the original colour was "oatmeal"), but this just I couldn't ignore. 😀

[@El.Duder-ino]

ARM - an undisputed king of the most efficient computing for masses! The original goal to develop: MIPS for massed was overachieved! Thank u Acorn/ARM!👍👍👏👏

[@Archimedes75009]

Wow, a sort of an Acorn Archimedes with RISC PC casing, wrong keyboard, and 2 buttons mouse ? That's a monstruosity ...

[@ralphpurves]

My first computer was an Acorn Electron, wrote my first racing game on it from a magazine 😁

[@juanstevan325]

The improvement in animation from the last video in unbelievable

[@dhairyabhardwaj3804]

Thanks for making this. It's interesting story and you have put together it very well!

[@senditall152]

These new videos are super well made.

[@denyereduardopuentes4410]

New video from Alex: proceed to grab juice, snacks, get comfy and watch it all!

[@sharot28]

That is the greatest thumbnail I've ever seen

[@der.Schtefan]

I said it before, I say it again: Being Austrian myself, I am in love with the Austrian flag pin on his jacket. It is so spot on. I live in Germany, and just yesterday my friends joked about me not missing any opportunity to point out that I am Austrian. 😂

[@LowSpecGamer]

It’s a little trick we stole from Extra History to keep track of characters but it never stops being funny

[@GsrItalia]

As Mr. Lauda taught me... Austrian keeps pride of their nationality and don't want to be confused with... "neighbors".

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

A certain person was born in a border town, and to this day each insists he was born on the other side.

[@timseguine2]

It's also funny because Austrians don't normally have to point out they are Austrian. You can hear it from the way they speak. I think it would only be possible to confuse them with Bavarians, who coincidentally also like to differentiate themselves from the rest of the German speaking part of Europe.

[@B_dev]

what a field we're in, where the creators of now ancient devices still walk among us!

[@philtkaswahl2124]

It's wild to think how the equivalents in those multiple chips, and then some, are now all on a single die.

[@LutraLovegood]

Want something even more wild? All the digital information that existed in 1990 could fit on an SD card.

[@syrvolga]

I love your videos so much; it's like a new Phoenix Wright game every time. With great villains, awesome music and great things to learn along the way! ❤

[@stevenclark2188]

There's a hidden story in here of that period where they were embedded cores in other devices everywhere. I remember my dad working on a high-end disk controller at Symbios/LSI that had at least one embedded ARM core. And I know ARM was one of the big 3 architectures for Windows CE HPCs (the other's being SH3 and MIPS). All of this was before the GBA.

[@LowSpecGamer]

Oh yeah, they banked hard on the embedded strategy. GBA just happened to be the mainstream device that helped them capture attention needed to IPO according to the interview I used as a source

[@joshuaunderwood7]

Ok, the artist deserves an extra callout for their superior work this video. BZ.

[@Verchiel_]

Still hard not to think of journey across Japan hearing that song

[@disgruntledfaerie]

Your accent is as charming as your videos! Love them both!

[@LowSpecGamer]

Thank you!

[@BastetFurry]

0:55 OBJECTION! At least Germany and the Netherlands where united under the blue and red chicken lips, Speccys where a side show at best.

[@alexisvargasjimenez6967]

I missed you brother, I remember when you made videos experimenting with game graphics, left 4 dead and payday 2 it wouldn't be bad if you saw the steam deck. greetings from Mexico.❤😊

[@_..-.._..-.._]

Low power chips are amazing now. My Amazon blink cams run up to 2 years on a pair of lithium AA Duracells. With motion detection, iR led night vision, Wi-Fi, microphone and speaker. Amazing tech.

[@sueza.807]

Wow, its literally 3 AM here, good to have something to watch while doin' sahoor for fasting.

[@El.Duder-ino]

Logical move to make everything on ARM as efficient as possible to deliver most per Watt as possible. This in those days unimportant philosophy became more and more relevant and important, especially in these days when Moore’s law is dying and efficiency ARM was focusing on since beginning is the key to win. ARM couldn’t compete with giants like Intel & AMD in its early days, but it eventually won in the end and surpassed them in popularity across all devices now growing in PCs and datacenters/enterprise. Well done ARM!

[@perpetualcollapse]

Understandable, have a nice day.

[@Johny40Se7en]

I love seeing the footage from the 80's 😄😛 Wonderful little processors, and "smart" phones wouldn't be where they are today without them.

[@QuarioQuario54321]

These are great, they should be turned into a cinematic universe

[@davidg1830]

It's false ZX Spectrum dominated microcomputer market in Erurope. It dominated UK (even there Commodore 64 was.near but below) and Spain, but other countries, some of them big, were dominated by Commodore 64, for example Germany where ZX Spectrum is near to unknown.

[@ruxcooking]

My 1st computer was an Olivetti laptop. So many fond memories with that giant, heavy monochromatic brick.

[@alexmorgun851]

your story telling is so good!

[@cr6w]

The thing I love about arm processors is the fact that you can run almost anything

[@El.Duder-ino]

Excellent video series, thank u for making them!

[@amigalemming]

Interesting, how ARM re-enters desktop computers today in Apple Macs via the indirection through mobile devices.

[@n_core]

13:42 That's still a good deal since they have their money back and can revive their business and become a behemoth corporation today. It's a weird comparison of how much their ARM share is worth today and back when they were selling it since Apple is 100x bigger than that partially because of the share that they sold. $30B is like a pocket change for Apple nowadays.

[@davidgalvez777]

Incredible video as always dude! Thanks!

[@joe3489]

I know that this isn't related to the general gist of this channel, but I think it would be interesting to explore Jobs' route post-Apple kickout with NEXT and his role in Pixar

[@LowSpecGamer]

It actually is a great topic idea. Right now we are working on two 4 part series: the story of the PC and the Story of Intel and AMD. But Apple in general is a topic after that I want to tackle

[@mahino420]

the man who made me play games on my potato laptop is uploading different videos after i upgraded it, good xD

[@TheEvertw]

Your content is invariably excellent: informative and amusing. Keep it up!

[@mechajay3358]

This have been very entertaining, funny and educational.

[@gilberttacad5396]

I'm loving these, keep em coming

[@elmersbalm5219]

Damn! I was an Acorn true believer and still find some news nuggets here. Props!

[@donaldboughton8686]

The Electron ended up in being nocked out for £90 in the high street at Dixons (now Currys). What did for it was the nibble memory access which slowed it down.

[@reu5000]

They were ahead of their time. 2020 saw arm chips slowly inching into the personal pc laptops and custom arm cores in the apple m series have went into the imac

[@DonMr]

Arm is god, so RISC V... One day.

[@MilanStojakov]

Damn, are these videos good!!! wish I had money to subscribe to the sidequest

[@skaltura]

certainly there was competeitors for ARM, on the same segment. I wonder which these were. I find it hard to imagine that ARM was the only one fitting the bill for what we use today on phones, and that without ARM essentially phones would not exist as we think of them

[@protocetid]

x86 has been used in smartphones in the past , there were times where it matched ARM. ARM eventually left it in the dust when it came to mobile, however x86 has never been as energy efficient and cool as it is now. Hence the handheld gaming PCs that have been popping up, it’s about time we try an x86 phone again. It may not be ARM's equal in that role, but I don't think many would care if they could play PC games and applications.

[@AndrewRoberts11]

Variants of the Motorola 68000 (Dragonball), MIPS, Intel i960, AMD 29000, and Zialog Z80 CPU's all had some traction initially, though the many inefficiencies of the 68000 that had led to Acorn starting the ARM project in the first place, the poor code density of the DRAM wasting MIPS projects, the price and slow I/O of the Intel and AMD parts, the 8-bit limitations of the Zialog, and as important, ARM SoCs were relatively cheap and had alternate suppliers, lead many to jump ship. Throw in the up-to 166 MHz StrongARM SoCs (Sold in the mid 90s by Digital and Intel), that could happily run on the power of 3+ AA batteries for 48 hrs, in say an Apple Newton, while offering the same Dhrystone MIPS benchmark scores as the 100 MHz PowerPC 603e found in Apple's entry level Desktops, though could throttle down and even suspend clocks, to only consume a negligible seepage current when idle, and required no active cooling was noticed. When companies required more cpu grunt for a cheap battery powered device, within a limited thermal package, and where they required a robust supply chain, there was really only one choice.

[@mikedrop4421]

These videos are too good for youtube

[@fueledbyregret]

Incredible as always. That said, it’s a little surreal having you cover my school computers 😂

[@saintuk70]

I've an Electron sitting in the room I'm currently in, it's right next to my BBC B, ZX Spectrum, and Amiga 500 and 1200 :)

[@SteelRatVT]

4:15 this is priceless

[@nufosmatic]

6:18 - Newton was a brick with an attitude. And a too-small battery. And a low-contrast display. I evaluated the Newton for the Visa International Home Banking Application in 1996.

[@ZwolfStriker]

Excellent work & Super informative thank you !!

[@Kytetiger]

12:45 i didnt expected to hear the same music as used by Major Hardware's "Fan Showdown" videos 😅

[@TheAtariSan]

When nebula go bust, are you gonna reupload those exclusive to youtube.

[@GsrItalia]

As far as I can remember, Apple (like Intel) should have "retained" some specific rights about being owner or "special licensee" of the ARM ISA. The volume of royalties to ARM should be quite really, really low compared to other competitors. This AFAIK for Cupertino Inc. was a gamechanger for leaving Intel products (like IBM and Motorola were not that fond to do what Cupertino Inc. needed). Anyone knows something more in detail is welcome to add more info or tell me that I'm wrong. By the way... the OMP/Newton processor was a StrongARM.

[@PlebeianTheWise]

Wow, these 3d renders are great!

[@Chris-ty7fw]

The game boy advance was available way earlier but Nintendo didn't want to market it as the original sold so much so they had to wait for sales to die down.

[@skaltura]

**ERROR** You got the inflation wrong. 1.5M $ is 3.45M $ today. -- even that i think is on the low ballpark but that's the official figure

[@ketfoen]

ARM is showing off its Strong Arm 💪🏼

[@Ayo22210]

They should make keyboard computers today with ARM chips that hook up to a monitor with a USB C cable

[@MatsK007]

I think there is a fact error in timestamp 7:33, you state that $1.5 million in 1990 is $2.23 millions today.

[@xard64]

It's interesting that it took Apple a Power PC phase and then an Intel phase before getting ARM processors into their computers which is like centuries in computer technology development pace.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

And the way they did it--by integrating everything together to make it impossible to upgrade--was a mistake. It gives great performance for a laptop-style product, but it means a Mac-Pro-class workstation is no longer really possible.

[@hanniffydinn6019]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104not true, if you know computer history and why ARM cpu was created was that memory was too slow, it had to be on the cpu die. This is the only way to speed up computing…as apple m1 have proven. So socs are 100% the future of computing- all other demands are just custom silicon on the cpu die with unified memory. You don’t need to “upgrade” memory. The fastest computers right now are ARM clusters. That’s why the first true 64bit computers were arm! 🤯🤯🤯

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@hanniffydinn6019 Just look at Apple’s current attempts to produce a Mac Pro successor. I rest my case.

[@hanniffydinn6019]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 yeah? Wrong! It’s faster & cheaper than the previous Mac Pro! Your argument is moot! 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤡🤡🤡🌍🌍🌍

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@hanniffydinn6019 Look at its lack of expandability, which is the point of a Mac Pro class machine.

[@oli133]

Awesome Video mate!

[@fishPointer]

these are so fun to watch!

[@Ivan-fr7xc]

I miss the old videos, is there any way to see them again? Because they are no longer available in this channel…

[@LowSpecGamer]

Playlist

[@domorobotics6172]

What happened to Olivetti after they saved the company? Did they get their share?

[@scottfranco1962]

Thumb does not really save power, its to reduce the memory of programs. Its slowly losing traction because memory size of programs is not that important anymore.

[@gamepad3173]

And we even have Single board computers running on arm: The Raspberry Pi.

[@Underestimated37]

I’d argue that the raspberry pi is the catalyst that drove ARM back into the forefront of the technical communities minds, prior to that a lot of embedded computing still relied on dodgy spin-offs of the x86 architectures, once the Pi came along there grew a massive new market for small scale computing that has changed the way modern technology has evolved

[@gamepad3173]

@@Underestimated37 And now we can even revive vintage computers with the Raspberry Pi and other such single board computers turning them into powerhouses. such as the Commodore 64 with an Orange Pi, with modern hardware and software (and a bit of DIY) it could run modern games. and would turn some heads at the same time.

[@sac3528]

I hate how every time I watch one of your videos, it ends.

[@daddie212]

as italian i cry every time we had one of the best computer company in the world even nasa use our computer and now is dosen''t exist, all the chip is made in asia from usa or uk company i hate that

[@MiguelEsguerra]

Can we have a part 3 for the Apple M1?

[@rayoflight62]

Great video, thank you. ARM went on to win the market both for embedded microcontrollers (I have a DNA e-cig based on an ARM micro) to portable computing (my phone has a Snapdragon with eight ARM cores inside). Plus, the modern version of the HP15 pocket calculator use an ARM-based device. Now, Apple has replaced hot Intel Cisc processors with their design based on ARM. Under the right conditions, their newer processor can be as fast as an Intel Core; but that still require a lot of software trickery and is not an universal proposition. Greetings, Anthony

[@Underestimated37]

Apples ARM architecture outstrips performance of the x86 counterparts in pretty much all scenarios, it even emulates and runs x86 binaries faster than running them natively in most cases, I was blown away by the performance of the M1 and M2 when I switched to them.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@Underestimated37 But these Apple machines are not upgradeable. How will they use the same architecture to create a Mac Pro successor? That market will not tolerate running on glorified laptops.

[@Underestimated37]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 not upgradable? The entire product line hasn’t been upgradable for ages, but you’re really not getting it, these chips out of the box perform better than an i9 processor, they have a variant that is triple the power of the base chip and runs a pro variant of the Mac mini. They’ve already done what you’re claiming that they can’t do. As for graphics cards and things like that, there’s been people online adapting pre-existing graphics cards to run with ARM already, some on apples architecture, it’s only the manufacturers themselves not coming to the table preventing them from being available already. They are not glorified laptop chips, they are fully functional processors running better than the equivalent chip on x86 architecture. There’s a whole community of users already using them for heavy lifting jobs like video rendering, photoshop, 3D graphics, CAD and Software Development, and they perform better than same generation PC machines running the exact same software in most cases, often with the high end PC chips performing worse than the base model M1 chip.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@Underestimated37 Still, there is no ARM-based Mac Pro equivalent as yet.

[@Underestimated37]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 that’s generally because apple has a habit of updating that product very slowly, the Mac Studio as it stands right now far outperforms the Mac Pro on pretty much everything except graphics card performance. There’s an ARM based Mac Pro planned but not announced yet too, they hinted that when they released the Mac Studio.

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

I'm interested to see what's going to happen now that ARM is refocusing it's attention back into desktop computing. We need something to shake up this long standing duopoly between Intel and AMD. I think this is the one instance where having outside pressures will spur up some ingenuity and we'll get to see vast improvements in market for the rest of this decade.

[@Underestimated37]

It’s going to be interesting for sure, and I’d be really interested to see where things go soon, with RISC-V potentially reaching maturity and with other RISC designs out there already open source like SPARC just waiting for the right team to come along and revive them too. Competition makes a market thrive, and the monopolization and consolidation that the 90s-2010s brought was the worst thing that could happen, and is why we’re seeing massive stagnation now. If we start to see a diverse number of well made alternatives hit the market it can only create more innovation as manufacturers scramble to keep up.

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

@@Underestimated37 I completely forgot about RISC-V when I made my last comment but yeah I totally agree with everything you added 4 sure 😀

[@dan_loup]

There's probably an arm chip in the thing reading this comment, even if it's a PC

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Considering that ARM has been in PC chips from the beginning ... did you mean a _Microsoft_ -compatible PC?

[@bufordmaddogtannen]

The spectrum dominating the home computer market in Europe?!? In what alternate universe?