6 ms·

The 486 and https://www.delorie.com/djgpp/history.html https://www.delorie.com/djgpp/history.html changed everything. Suddenly, it was possible to imagine runn

The 486 and https://www.delorie.com/djgpp/history.html https://www.delorie.com/djgpp/history.html changed everything. Suddenly, it was possible to imagine running advanced software on a PC, and not have to spend 25,000 USD on a workstation.

dbdr 5mo ago
Amazing to see a webpage "Updated Dec 1998" still up, running and displaying correctly.
- madduci 5mo ago
  Without fancy JS or CSS, sites can last decades easily
  - k4rnaj1k 5mo ago
    [dead]
  - spankalee 5mo ago
    With JS and CSS sites can last decades easily.
    - mikestorrent 5mo ago
      Agreed, it's not those, it's the fact that we went from JS being a little sprinkling of dynamism on a document to an entire build process with massive numbers of dependencies and browser shims. The web feels like a mistake as a platform...
    - madduci 5mo ago
      I said "fancy", meaning frameworks or custom things. With vanilla js everything is durable
adzm 5mo ago
I remember trying to run a game, Rise of the Triad, which was built with an improved Wolfenstein engine iirc, and having it struggle on my 386 unless I made the viewport as small as possible. At which point it told me to buy a 486... well I did eventually, I guess it worked.
- temporallobe 5mo ago
  Had the same experience with Doom II. Got it to run surprisingly well on a brand new Tandy 486DX2 + 4MB RAM, though I seem to recall having issues with SoundBlaster compatibility.
CyberDildonics 5mo ago
It was really the 386 that was the beginning of modern computing, since it had a mmu.
- theodorethomas 5mo ago
  Except the 486 had hardware floating point, essential for technical work.
  - CyberDildonics 5mo ago
    That's an advancement but that's a matter of speed an simplicity. An MMU is a huge before and after, it's still the biggest separator of CPUs today. The most important detail to understand a CPU is whether it has an MMU.
  - II2II 5mo ago
    An MMU is pretty much necessary for robust multitasking. Without it, you are at the whim of how well software behaves. Without it, it is more difficult for developers to create well behaved software. That also assumes good intentions from programmers, since an MMU is necessary for memory protection (thus security). While emulating an FPU results in a huge performance penalty, it is only required in certain domains. In the world of IBM PCs, it was also possible to upgrade your system with an FPU after the fact. I don't recall seeing this option for IBM compatibles. While I have seen socketed MMUs on other systems, I don't know whether they were intended as upgrade options.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
  - ciupicri 5mo ago
    By the way, "the i486SX was a microprocessor originally released by Intel in 1991. It was a modified Intel i486DX microprocessor with its floating-point unit (FPU) disabled." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I486SX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I486SX)
  - 5mo ago
ryandrake 5mo ago
It's hard to convey to today's generation, who think Ivy Bridge to Haswell was a big jump or whatever, how awesome the 286 -> 386 -> 486 changes were to personal computing. It felt almost like what going from a NES to a Super Nintendo to a N64 felt like. The improvements were astounding.
- ciupicri 5mo ago
  It wasn't a big jump, but it was a jump. Ivy Bridge lacks the instruction set required to run RHEL 10 [1]. The minimum supported microarchitecture level is x86-64-v3 and Ivy Bridge lacks AVX2 instructions. [1]: https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/10/html/considerations_in_adopting_rhel_10/architectures https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_...
  - raverbashing 5mo ago
    I'm surprised RHEL is requiring AVX2 models, they usually had some slack in processor requirements (though I'm sure not as big as Debian)
    - ciupicri 5mo ago
      They analysed the compatibility impact, see https://developers.redhat.com/articles/2024/01/02/exploring-x86-64-v3-red-hat-enterprise-linux-10#compatibility_impact https://developers.redhat.com/articles/2024/01/02/exploring-...
KellyCriterion 5mo ago
and dont forget _legendary_ RHIDE dev environment! https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/gnu/www/directory/all/rhide.html https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/gnu/www/directory/all/rhide.html :-) And you could use VESA linear framebuffer above 256KB - this was a breakthrough back then :-))

dbdr 5mo ago

Amazing to see a webpage "Updated Dec 1998" still up, running and displaying correctly.

madduci 5mo ago
Without fancy JS or CSS, sites can last decades easily
- k4rnaj1k 5mo ago
  [dead]
- spankalee 5mo ago
  With JS and CSS sites can last decades easily.
  - mikestorrent 5mo ago
    Agreed, it's not those, it's the fact that we went from JS being a little sprinkling of dynamism on a document to an entire build process with massive numbers of dependencies and browser shims. The web feels like a mistake as a platform...
  - madduci 5mo ago
    I said "fancy", meaning frameworks or custom things. With vanilla js everything is durable

adzm 5mo ago

I remember trying to run a game, Rise of the Triad, which was built with an improved Wolfenstein engine iirc, and having it struggle on my 386 unless I made the viewport as small as possible. At which point it told me to buy a 486... well I did eventually, I guess it worked.

temporallobe 5mo ago
Had the same experience with Doom II. Got it to run surprisingly well on a brand new Tandy 486DX2 + 4MB RAM, though I seem to recall having issues with SoundBlaster compatibility.

CyberDildonics 5mo ago

It was really the 386 that was the beginning of modern computing, since it had a mmu.

theodorethomas 5mo ago
Except the 486 had hardware floating point, essential for technical work.
- CyberDildonics 5mo ago
  That's an advancement but that's a matter of speed an simplicity. An MMU is a huge before and after, it's still the biggest separator of CPUs today. The most important detail to understand a CPU is whether it has an MMU.
- II2II 5mo ago
  An MMU is pretty much necessary for robust multitasking. Without it, you are at the whim of how well software behaves. Without it, it is more difficult for developers to create well behaved software. That also assumes good intentions from programmers, since an MMU is necessary for memory protection (thus security). While emulating an FPU results in a huge performance penalty, it is only required in certain domains. In the world of IBM PCs, it was also possible to upgrade your system with an FPU after the fact. I don't recall seeing this option for IBM compatibles. While I have seen socketed MMUs on other systems, I don't know whether they were intended as upgrade options.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
- ciupicri 5mo ago
  By the way, "the i486SX was a microprocessor originally released by Intel in 1991. It was a modified Intel i486DX microprocessor with its floating-point unit (FPU) disabled." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I486SX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I486SX)
- 5mo ago

ryandrake 5mo ago

It's hard to convey to today's generation, who think Ivy Bridge to Haswell was a big jump or whatever, how awesome the 286 -> 386 -> 486 changes were to personal computing. It felt almost like what going from a NES to a Super Nintendo to a N64 felt like. The improvements were astounding.

ciupicri 5mo ago
It wasn't a big jump, but it was a jump. Ivy Bridge lacks the instruction set required to run RHEL 10 [1]. The minimum supported microarchitecture level is x86-64-v3 and Ivy Bridge lacks AVX2 instructions. [1]: https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/10/html/considerations_in_adopting_rhel_10/architectures https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_...
- raverbashing 5mo ago
  I'm surprised RHEL is requiring AVX2 models, they usually had some slack in processor requirements (though I'm sure not as big as Debian)
  - ciupicri 5mo ago
    They analysed the compatibility impact, see https://developers.redhat.com/articles/2024/01/02/exploring-x86-64-v3-red-hat-enterprise-linux-10#compatibility_impact https://developers.redhat.com/articles/2024/01/02/exploring-...

KellyCriterion 5mo ago

and dont forget _legendary_ RHIDE dev environment! https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/gnu/www/directory/all/rhide.html https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/gnu/www/directory/all/rhide.html :-) And you could use VESA linear framebuffer above 256KB - this was a breakthrough back then :-))