[GTALUG] Intel straws and Camel's backs [WAS: life expectancy of 32-bit x86]

[Giles Orr]

On 14 February 2018 at 14:32, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

>
> | > Almost NO 32-bit x86 chips are in current production.  I think that
> | > Intel has some goofy SoCs for IoT applications that are limited to
> | > 32-bit but they really don't matter.
> |
> | No, they canned that line last year. They really were not very good.
>
> This doesn't say that it is EoLed.  But I do think I heard that they
> stopped work in this direction.
>
> <https://ark.intel.com/products/91949>
>
> The "segfault bug" (lock instruction (prefix?) bug) sounds bad:
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quark#Segfault_bug>
>

That's an awesome solution they implemented there: "don't use LOCK."  Intel
says "It's 2014, you don't need multi-threading!"

There's this assumption among many computer geeks (until today I was among
them) that Intel is the chip "gold standard."  I _should_ have changed my
mind on that after their spectacularly poor response to Spectre and
Meltdown.  And then there's the security nightmare of the IME, a horribly
insecure computer-within-your-computer.  But for some reason, I think this
is the figurative straw that broke the camel's back: I'm going to be
looking to other chip manufacturers after this.

All my vehemence and reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine shows that AMD has
created their own IME-alike.  Security is a thing of the past ...

-- 
Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com
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