From: Andy Shevchenko <andy.shevchenko@gmail.com>
To: David Laight <David.Laight@aculab.com>
Cc: "Arnd Bergmann" <arnd@kernel.org>, "Willy Tarreau" <w@1wt.eu>,
"Linux ARM" <linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org>,
"Linux Kernel Mailing List" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
"Krzysztof Adamski" <krzysztof.adamski@nokia.com>,
"Oleksij Rempel" <o.rempel@pengutronix.de>,
"Baruch Siach" <baruch@tkos.co.il>,
"Russell King - ARM Linux" <linux@armlinux.org.uk>,
"Daniel Tang" <dt.tangr@gmail.com>,
"Uwe Kleine-König" <u.kleine-koenig@pengutronix.de>,
"Jamie Iles" <jamie@jamieiles.com>,
"Barry Song" <song.bao.hua@hisilicon.com>,
"Viresh Kumar" <viresh.kumar@linaro.org>,
"Linus Walleij" <linus.walleij@linaro.org>,
"Jonas Jensen" <jonas.jensen@gmail.com>,
"Marc Gonzalez" <marc.w.gonzalez@free.fr>,
"Hartley Sweeten" <hsweeten@visionengravers.com>,
"Lubomir Rintel" <lkundrak@v3.sk>,
"Neil Armstrong" <narmstrong@baylibre.com>,
"Shawn Guo" <shawnguo@kernel.org>,
"Alex Elder" <elder@linaro.org>,
"Alexander Shiyan" <shc_work@mail.ru>,
"Koen Vandeputte" <koen.vandeputte@ncentric.com>,
"Hans Ulli Kroll" <ulli.kroll@googlemail.com>,
"Vladimir Zapolskiy" <vz@mleia.com>,
"Wei Xu" <xuwei5@hisilicon.com>,
"Steven Rostedt" <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
"Yoshinori Sato" <ysato@users.osdn.me>,
"Mark Salter" <msalter@redhat.com>,
"Michael Ellerman" <mpe@ellerman.id.au>,
"Geert Uytterhoeven" <geert+renesas@glider.be>,
"Thomas Bogendoerfer" <tsbogend@alpha.franken.de>
Subject: Re: Old platforms: bring out your dead
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 12:27:01 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAHp75Vf43_zqDX9K4GmkRd7fujY2zC8=LneSMFpC2qnJL_uG1A@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <6fb7e3f5035d44fab9801001f1811b59@AcuMS.aculab.com>
On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 11:55 AM David Laight <David.Laight@aculab.com> wrote:
> From: Arnd Bergmann
> > Sent: 09 January 2021 21:53
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 6:56 AM Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 08, 2021 at 11:55:06PM +0100, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > > > * 80486SX/DX: 80386 CPUs were dropped in 2012, and there are
> > > > indications that 486 have no users either on recent kernels.
> > > > There is still the Vortex86 family of SoCs, and the oldest of those were
> > > > 486SX-class, but all the modern ones are 586-class.
> > >
> > > These also are the last generation of fanless x86 boards with 100% compatible
> > > controllers, that some people have probably kept around because these don't
> > > age much and have plenty of connectivity. I've used an old one a few times
> > > to plug in an old floppy drive, ISA SCSI controllers to access an old tape
> > > drive and a few such things. That doesn't mean that it's a good justification
> > > not to remove them, what I rather mean is that *if* there is no benefit
> > > in dropping them maybe we can keep them. On the other hand, good luck for
> > > running a modern OS on these, when 16MB-32MB RAM was about the maximum that
> > > was commonly found by then (though if people kept them around that's probably
> > > because they were well equipped, like that 64MB 386DX I'm having :-)).
> >
> > I think there were 486s with up to 256MB, which would still qualify as barely
> > usable for a minimal desktop, or as comfortable for a deeply embedded
> > system. The main limit was apparently the cacheable RAM, which is limited
> > by the amount of L2 cache -- you needed a rare 1MB of external L2-cache to
> > have 256MB of cached RAM, while more common 256KB of cache would
> > be good for 64MB. Vortex86SX has no FPU or L2 cache at all, but supports
> > 256MB of DDR2.
>
> There are also some newer (well less than 30 year old) cpus that are
(less than 10 years actually)
> basically 486 but have a few extra instructions - probably just cpuid
> and (IIRC) rdtsc.
> Designed for low power embedded use they won't ever have been suitable
> for a desktop - but are probably fast enough for some uses.
> I'm not sure how much keeping 486 support actually costs, 386 was a
> PITA - but the 486 fixed most of those issues.
Right, we have "last of mohicans" (to date) Intel Quark family of CPUs
(486 core + few i586 features).
This is for the embedded world and probably not for powerful use.
--
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-01-13 10:28 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 122+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-01-08 22:55 Old platforms: bring out your dead Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-08 23:32 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-01-09 22:04 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-08 23:44 ` Thomas Bogendoerfer
2021-01-09 0:16 ` Linus Walleij
2021-01-09 17:32 ` Florian Fainelli
2021-01-09 21:59 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-09 5:56 ` Willy Tarreau
2021-01-09 21:52 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-10 6:21 ` Willy Tarreau
2021-01-10 10:44 ` Russell King - ARM Linux admin
2021-01-11 9:50 ` David Laight
2021-01-13 10:27 ` Andy Shevchenko [this message]
2021-01-13 12:02 ` Linus Walleij
2021-01-13 12:17 ` Andy Shevchenko
2021-01-13 12:21 ` Andy Shevchenko
2021-01-15 0:03 ` Bernd Petrovitsch
2021-01-15 0:24 ` William Breathitt Gray
2021-01-15 8:59 ` David Laight
2021-01-13 12:30 ` William Breathitt Gray
2021-01-13 12:56 ` William Breathitt Gray
2021-01-13 13:44 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-02-04 21:01 ` Pavel Machek
2021-02-05 9:13 ` David Laight
2021-02-05 9:29 ` Pavel Machek
2021-01-09 17:34 ` Florian Fainelli
2021-01-09 21:18 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-09 17:43 ` Russell King - ARM Linux admin
2021-01-09 21:34 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 20:09 ` Russell King - ARM Linux admin
2021-01-09 20:19 ` Baruch Siach
2021-01-09 21:19 ` Arnd Bergmann
[not found] ` <67171E13-6786-4B44-A8C2-3302963B055F@gmail.com>
2021-01-09 22:20 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-10 18:12 ` Fabian Vogt
2021-01-10 19:20 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-10 21:33 ` Linus Walleij
2021-01-11 0:33 ` Russell King - ARM Linux admin
2021-01-11 12:32 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 12:36 ` Russell King - ARM Linux admin
2021-01-09 23:12 ` Andrew Lunn
2021-01-10 8:45 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-10 16:46 ` Andrew Lunn
2021-01-10 17:27 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-10 19:51 ` Andrew Lunn
2021-01-10 15:51 ` Neil Armstrong
2021-01-10 15:56 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-10 17:35 ` John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
2021-01-10 21:46 ` Sam Ravnborg
2021-01-11 8:05 ` John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
2021-01-11 14:55 ` chase rayfield
2021-01-12 0:26 ` Rob Landley
2021-01-12 0:50 ` chase rayfield
2021-01-12 14:37 ` John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
2021-01-11 18:09 ` Rob Landley
2021-01-11 15:04 ` Gerhard Pircher
2021-01-12 14:44 ` John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
2021-01-12 22:46 ` Linus Walleij
2021-01-13 8:09 ` Rob Landley
2021-01-13 8:21 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-01-13 13:25 ` Rob Landley
2021-01-13 12:02 ` Andy Shevchenko
2021-01-13 8:15 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-01-13 10:39 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-14 3:54 ` New platforms: bring out your dead, was " Finn Thain
2021-01-14 9:41 ` John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
2021-01-14 9:48 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-01-14 21:21 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-14 22:54 ` Undesirable code, was Re: Old platforms etc Finn Thain
2021-01-14 23:09 ` Old platforms: bring out your dead Max Filippov
2021-01-15 8:31 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-13 0:12 ` Old platforms never die, was " Finn Thain
2021-01-16 6:54 ` Rob Landley
2021-01-16 23:22 ` Finn Thain
2021-01-13 11:47 ` Andy Shevchenko
2021-01-11 1:39 ` Daniel Palmer
2021-01-11 9:15 ` John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
2021-01-11 9:20 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-01-11 9:26 ` John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
2021-01-11 9:36 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-01-11 9:50 ` Greg Ungerer
2021-01-11 9:42 ` Daniel Palmer
2021-01-11 10:13 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 8:19 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-01-11 8:59 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 9:16 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-01-11 10:28 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-01-11 10:37 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 9:40 ` Thomas Bogendoerfer
2021-01-11 10:34 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 8:40 ` efm32 is dead [Was: Old platforms: bring out your dead] Uwe Kleine-König
2021-01-11 11:10 ` Old platforms: bring out your dead Viresh Kumar
2021-01-11 19:59 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 21:15 ` Mattias Wallin
2021-01-11 21:47 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 13:13 ` Marc Gonzalez
2021-01-11 17:29 ` Måns Rullgård
2021-01-11 21:50 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-12 8:23 ` Marc Gonzalez
2021-01-11 14:22 ` Mark Salter
2021-01-11 15:00 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 14:44 ` Alexander Shiyan
2021-01-11 14:58 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 16:23 ` Sylvain Lemieux
2021-01-11 22:17 ` Alexandre Belloni
2021-01-11 19:58 ` Thomas Petazzoni
2021-01-11 20:10 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-11 20:25 ` Song Bao Hua (Barry Song)
2021-01-12 8:41 ` Marc Gonzalez
2021-01-13 10:30 ` Andy Shevchenko
2021-01-13 11:02 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-13 16:14 ` [v2] " Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-13 19:00 ` Krzysztof Hałasa
2021-01-14 8:51 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-15 7:08 ` Wei Xu
2021-01-15 9:26 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-15 11:09 ` Leizhen (ThunderTown)
2021-01-15 12:04 ` Arnd Bergmann
2021-01-18 10:46 ` Wei Xu
2021-01-13 22:27 ` Richard Z
2021-02-05 13:37 ` Alexander Lobakin
2021-10-23 17:44 ` Maciej W. Rozycki
2021-01-12 2:05 tedheadster
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