Microsoft launches Windows 10 on ARM

Re:Microsoft launches Windows 10 on ARM by Joeri on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @03:41PM (#15855645)

As far as I understand, they don't emulate the x86 instruction set, but instead cross-compile it to ARM native instructions. That means that whatever implementation details are behind the patented x86 instructions are irrelevant, since there is no emulation of those instructions, they are just replaced by equivalent ARM instructions. Intel will probably still sue, but I expect them to settle out of court.

http://www.techradar.com/news/a-closer-look-at-windows-10-s-...

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Re:Microsoft launches Windows 10 on ARM by mr_toad on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @05:36PM (#15856708)

"The real-time ‘Just-In-Time’ transcoding emulation that converts x86 instructions to ARM is done the first time you run the software, and then it’s cached by Windows"

Still sounds like emulation to me. It's a pretty fine line.

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Re:Microsoft launches Windows 10 on ARM by cm2187 on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @03:48PM (#15855776)

But can they patent the instruction set rather than their implementation? Feels like a repeat of the google java lawsuit.

In fact weren’t the IBM compatible PCs in the 80s doing exactly that?

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Re:Microsoft launches Windows 10 on ARM by rossy on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @05:22PM (#15856601)

Isn't that equivalent to emulating it? Like emulators for video game systems that have both an interpreter and a JIT recompiler, the latter is just an optimization of the former. They both must interpret the instruction set of the target and run equivalent instructions on the host.

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Re:Microsoft launches Windows 10 on ARM by beagle3 on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @07:04AM (#15860470)

Patents have a funny feature, in that they (are supposed to) apply to a specific implementation. So "equivalent effect" is not enough for patent violation in the general case.

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