ARM Attacks Intel's Netbook Stranglehold 521
Barence writes "British chip designer ARM is launching an outright attack on Intel with the launch of a 2GHz processor aimed at everything from netbooks to servers. ARM claims the 40nm Cortex A9 MPCore processor represents a shift in strategy for the company, which has until now concentrated on low-power processors for mobile devices. In the consumer market, ARM is pitching the Cortex A9 directly against Intel's Atom, claiming the processor offers five times the power while drawing comparable amounts of energy. 'It's head and shoulders above anything Intel can deliver today,' ARM VP of marketing Eric Schom claims. However, it has one major hurdle to overcome: it doesn't support Windows. 'We've had conversations with Microsoft and you can imagine what they entail,' says Schom."
Goody (Score:5, Funny)
Broken, first gen/beta ARM drivers for all my hardware!
Re:Porting code to a new architecture (Score:5, Funny)
Let's say 30 years ago I gave you one end of an infinitely long piece of yarn and told you to start knitting a sweater. At first, it's not too bad. The yarn has a pretty standard consistency, although it sucks compared to some other yarn on the market. Then I start changing things up. Adding some knots and tangles in the yarn I hand to you. You do your best to accomodate and actually come up with a pretty nice sweater. Then you start re-designing the sweater to take advantage of the knots and tangles, and I just keep putting more and more complex knots in there since you seem to be doing great with the ones I've sent so far. Your sweater grows thick with piles of yarn and by the time 30 years rolls around, you've got yourself a pretty great sweater. Of course, you had some massive screwups like sweater ME and sweater Vista.
Now let's say I ask you to knit the same sweater using a beautifully crafted roll of thread.
I think you can see how hard that would be.
ooh (Score:3, Funny)
I will buy one (Score:2, Funny)
I want one. Now. (I assume that it runs a full Linux distro of course).
Just for kicks (Score:5, Funny)
If anyone ever starts a new CPU-related company, can you please call it LEG for the sake of "it cost an ARM and a LEG" jokes?
Thank you.
Re:Porting code to a new architecture (Score:5, Funny)
Does the sweater go on a car?
Re:No Windows? Great! No Microsoft tax! (Score:0, Funny)
There is No Microsoft Tax Except on Lazy Twats [wordpress.com]. I enjoy Microsoft operating systems, but I've never been taxed. My first two PCs were built from scratch, then I purchased a Windows OS separately. My last 2 PC purchases came with Windows already installed as this was my choice, but I had other options.
If you were buying your PCs with a Windows OS you never wanted and never needed, you are only a victim of your own ignorance or laziness. You are the one at fault, not Microsoft or anyone else you'd rather blame.
Re:Goody (Score:4, Funny)
Great! You go ahead and be an early adopter, suffer through first gen/beta headaches, buggy drivers, random system crashes.
I think you're operating on a flawed assumption. These systems won't be running Windows.