[COFF] Architectures -- was [TUHS] 68k prototypes & microcode

[athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)]

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> On Feb 5, 2021, at 7:36 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> I feel a little like Dr Seuss'  'Onceler' in the Lorax story ... if Arm can go upscale from the phone platform who knows what will happen - Bell's Law predicts Arm displaces INTEL*64: 
> “Approximately every decade a new computer class forms as a new “minimal” computer either through using fewer components or use of a small fractional part of the state-of-the-art chips.” 
> 
> FWIW:  Bell basically has claimed a technical point, based on Christenson's observation; the 'lessor' technology will displace the 'better one.'   Or as I say it, sophisticated architecture always losses to better economics.

…

As it happens, I got my M1 Macbook Air on Tuesday.

Nothing seems slower than my 2018 Air, which is kind of astonishing given that I know most of the applications are still Intel-native and being run under Rosetta emulation (and x86_64 is not a particularly easy architecture to emulate).

And, oh my goodness, the battery life.

I’ve been unplugging it first thing in the morning, and I don’t have to plug it in again until 2PM-ish.  I have Slack and Discord open, both of which were horrendous CPU hogs on the Intel Air, and am doing light Python development with it, albeit not tons of compilation.  My Intel Air’s CPU temperature was usually 65C, going up to 80C if I did a video call.  The M1 is at 32.2C, which given that the ambient temperature in my office is probably 22C (Tucson, during the winter, with the doors and windows open), is pretty impressive, especially since it has no fan.  Last night it did a 3-1/2 hour video call from the battery without any complaint whatsoever.

So…arm64 is cheap, fast, and remarkaby power-efficient[*].  I am impressed.

Adam

[*] not that I didn’t know this before.  The first four items at https://mvsevm.fsf.net/ <https://mvsevm.fsf.net/> are running on a single Pi 3B+ running 64-bit Ubuntu.  It doesn’t have a battery, but I think it’s drawing at most 5W, and the CPU temperature is 52C (also passively cooled).
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