On 1/4/2023 at 11:07 AM, xanthrou said:
Well, Nintendo 64 had SGI tech...
It was released in 1996 which meant chip had way more transistors available. Getting anything done in 1985 meant way more restrictions.
On 1/4/2023 at 5:33 AM, Calculon said:
Ignoring that it would be a prohibitively large change that would have delayed the release by years, if they only got their hands on one in 1985 (I mean, it would be waaaay more than just recompilation)… would ARM even be available to them? How much say did Acorn (a direct competitor) have in who could license an Acorn RISC Machine?
The logic of the kernel and libraries would have stayed the same. So I don't think it would been that monumental. They used BCPL after all. For the chips supply I bet Tramiel would have made a contract that would made sure he weren't screwed. Probably along the lines of license the IP and we make them in our own MOS fab.
You don't screw Tramiel, he screws you ?
And besides getting a 7x advantage over the competition would be extremely tempting.