Back to home page

DOS ain't dead

Forum index page

Log in | Register

Search:  
Back to the forum
Board view  Mix view

Fallacies that advocate software bloat (Miscellaneous)

posted by Rugxulo Homepage, Usono, 18.01.2026, 16:54

> > New computers are more efficient than old ones;

Supposedly a 486 (in-order cpu) was much more energy efficient than later out-of-order (686 etc.) cpus. Granted, I'm thinking more of battery life, but I don't have any concrete proof of that.

Obviously the early Intel Atoms were in-order too. The Pentium Pro (686) had 4-1-1 micro ops (out of order) and even the original Pentium (superscalar) had U and (weaker) V pipes. I think it's normally called "speculative execution" when the cpu guesses results before you ask for it. (Dunno, I'm not really a professional optimizer.)

The Nintendo Switch running Tears of the Kingdom supposedly gets like three hours battery life! That's not great. People made fun of older handhelds (e.g. Sega Game Gear or Atari Lynx) that were actually longer lasting than that. My 2022 Intel laptop barely gets a few hours battery life, but ARM devices (e.g. my old Android tablet) were much much more efficient. (And yet Switch uses ARM64, go figure.) And yet my Intel Celeron Chromebook used to get much better battery life too, but it's VERY short-lived and kinda a throwaway device. Most devices nowadays seem to be.

I guess there is no perfect answer or we all would've solved it by now.

Post reply
 

Complete thread:

Back to the forum
Board view  Mix view
23153 Postings in 2179 Threads, 404 registered users (0 online)
DOS ain't dead | Admin contact
RSS Feed
powered by my little forum