March 04, 2013, 8:56 PM — Image credit: CPUShack Museum It's
rare that technology can last multiple decades, but it does
happen. Bob Metcalf invented Ethernet while working at Xerox
PARC in the early 1970s and it still runs the Internet, TCP/IP
was a DARPANet creation of the early '70s and sendmail, used in
SMTP email routing, was created in 1979. So for all the
modernity of technology, we're still using a lot of stuff that's
middle-aged in human terms. The x86 microarchitecture is another
aged technology, and it has survived more assassination attempts
than Fidel Castro. What makes the number of attempts on x86 more
interesting is that Intel is the one who keeps trying to take it
out. On at least three occasions, the company had what it
thought was the successor to x86 and in all three cases it
failed to one degree or another. While those chips failed, x86
only got stronger in the process. Its fight with ARM may prove
the greatest challenge ever, but for now it's still playing out.
Let's take a look at those