[HN Gopher] Emulating x86 on X64 on Aarch64
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Emulating x86 on X64 on Aarch64
Author : zdw
Score : 56 points
Date : 2023-08-13 23:20 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (neugierig.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (neugierig.org)
| notorandit wrote:
| The article is so fast that it will be written on August 23rd and
| published on 14th!
| [deleted]
| neaumusic wrote:
| apple's game-porting-toolkit is amazing, highly recommend
| checking out this article:
|
| https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Game_Porting_Toolkit
|
| and this thread (talking about installing 32 bit with wine64):
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/15l0onw/dark_and...
|
| it's for a specific video game, but very similar (using wine)
| manuel_w wrote:
| If anyone is wondering: With X64 the author is referring to
| x86_64 a.k.a. AMD64. Wondering why they're introducing yet
| another name for the same thing.
| evmar wrote:
| The post says '64-bit x86 ("x86-64" or "x64")' which is also
| roughly what the first sentence of Wikipedia has to say about
| it. I personally picked it just because it was shorter to type
| and easily understood in context.
| Uehreka wrote:
| I wouldn't say that they're introducing it, I see x64 used to
| refer to 64-bit x86 in a lot of places. If you don't like it or
| think it's technically wrong for some reason that's one thing,
| but you'll be fighting an uphill battle if you want it to go
| away.
| sedatk wrote:
| It was called AMD64 when AMD and Microsoft designed it, but
| Intel objected using the term when they adopted the
| architecture and coined their own: EM64T. So, Microsoft came up
| with a compromise and started calling it x64.
| cesarb wrote:
| > It was called AMD64 when AMD and Microsoft designed it,
|
| The original name was x86-64. Quoting myself
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36075840):
|
| > I still shake my head at how they were able to successfully
| rebrand it from amd64 to x86-64
|
| It's the opposite: the original name was x86-64, and amd64 is
| a later rebranding. See, for instance, the original web site
| for this (then) new architecture: https://web.archive.org/web
| /20000829042251/http://www.x86-64...
| sedatk wrote:
| Yes, but that doesn't contradict with what I said. AMD had
| pivoted to "AMD64" soon after and that was before Intel had
| released their own name: EM64T. Microsoft coined x64 around
| that time, probably found it more marketable than x86-64,
| becuase they had used it in commercial branding such as
| "Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" too. (They couldn't
| call Windows XP "64-bit edition" because that term was used
| for their Itanium-based (IA64) products).
| camel-cdr wrote:
| X64 is, only beaten by Intel 64, the worst name for the
| architecture.
| wryun wrote:
| My vote is for x32.
|
| (you didn't know? https://wiki.debian.org/X32Port)
| Salgat wrote:
| x86 is short for 8086 family instruction set architecture,
| and x64 is short for x86-64. Makes sense to me and follows
| the same pattern.
| cameron_b wrote:
| The Grief over the use of x64 for AMD64 or X86-64 is based
| in the prior use of "x64" for the DEC Alpha architecture in
| the hardware naming: "DECchip 21x64" [0]
|
| Digital was earlier to market the Alpha as a 64 bit ISA
| than either Intel's Itanium ( IA-64) or AMD's x86-64 which
| is also called AMD64 [1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit_computing
| linguae wrote:
| While I personally prefer the terms x86-64 or AMD64, x64 is
| used by Microsoft to describe the x86-64 architecture:
|
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/d...
|
| There's even a guide from Intel that uses the term x64:
|
| https://www.intel.com/content/dam/develop/external/us/en/doc...
| [deleted]
| TillE wrote:
| Just to underline that, Microsoft has been using "x64" for
| about 20 years; the architecture was supported on Windows XP
| and Server 2003.
|
| It's probably the clearest term to use when you're talking
| specifically about Windows binaries (PE files).
| com2kid wrote:
| More than that, behind the scenes Microsoft helped AMD
| design x64.
|
| (Source: someone who was there when it happened who then
| told me over beer.)
| [deleted]
| monocasa wrote:
| Yeah, I've heard this too. Adding that apparently Dave
| Cutler himself had a hand in the design.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| retrowin32 seems like a very cool project. Conceptually it seems
| very close to touchHLE. Both are written in Rust!
| msephton wrote:
| Given how you've been able to do this, I'm interested to hear
| your thoughts on Apple removing support for 32-bit code?
| burnte wrote:
| It cleaned up dramatically what Apple had to support going
| forward for ARM. They COULD have kept supporting it, they
| decided since we needed an ISA change, may as well go all
| 64-bit at the same time and kill off compatibility cruft.
| msephton wrote:
| Right, but could they have done something like Wine/you are
| doing and kept it? A compromise of sorts? Edit: I see you're
| saying they chose a clean break.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The smart move for Apple would be to always be ready to
| emulate any old platform. Build the emulator as an app, so
| that one day, when that app gets too old, run it itself in
| an emulator.
|
| That way it can be emulation all the way down, and you get
| binary compatibility forever with minimal ongoing
| engineering cost. The performance would be atrocious if not
| for the fact computers today are faster than 1980's
| computers so it really doesn't matter.
| [deleted]
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| That's a pretty good point, it is odd for Apple to not
| have provided even a simple WINE-like utility for
| emulating 32 bit apps, even without any effort put into
| optimization it would have still been useful for M1/M2
| chips.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2023-08-14 23:00 UTC)