Re:Apple's M1 processor spotlights Intel's chip challenges
by sliken on Thursday November 12, 2020 @06:49PM
(#25076955)
True, but ARM, and apple in particular have been willing to discard compatibility with previous generations. I believe the M1 for instance is not 32 bit compatible. ARM also was willing to do some house cleaning when they designed the 64 bit architecture.
X86-64s on the other hand have compatibility not just to 32 bit, but also 16 bit. You can still boot dos 1.0 if you wanted.
ARM is older than you may think :) AFAIR the ARM instruction set was developed just a couple years after the Intel 8086, 1983 vs 1978. They're both nearing 40 years, but not that modern x86-64 or ARM64 are the same as those old ISAs.