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The most exciting 2024 tech isn't AI
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this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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Technology
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I would love to see it. But I'm far more excited for RISC-V desktops, truth be told.
RISC-V is also really exciting, yeah. I'm curious if it will have to go through the same slow progression in form factors that we saw with ARM (first embedded, then phones, then tablets, etc.) or if we'll get high-performance RISC hardware more quickly.
Hasn’t RISC been around since at least the 90s? How much more time do they really need if it’s ever going to be ready for desktops?
RISC-V dates from 2011. RISC processors have been around since the 1980s, and ARM processors (in all our mobile devices) are RISC processors. Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3) is ARM-based so RISC is also in Macs, which proves it's feasible in high-performing laptop and desktop computers. But the particular appeal of RISC-V is its open licensing.
Ah, thanks. Obviously I didn’t keep up with developments as well as I thought. I knew that Apple Silicon is Arm-based, but I didn’t realize that Arm is RISC.
Yeah, ARM originally stood for Advanced RISC Machines. And the company grew out of Acorn Computers, a British company that made some excellent, innovative computers in the 1980s and 90s, including the BBC Microcomputer (not RISC) and the original RISC machine, the Acorn Archimedes. (The BBC Micro was central to computer education in the UK and the Raspberry Pi is an attempt to get back to the spirit of that project. The Raspberry Pi also uses a RISC CPU.)
There's an interesting article about the thoughts of one of the Raspberry Pi founders on RISC-V here https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/what-eben-upton-said-about-risc-v
I'm guessing we won't see a RISC-V version any time soon.
That's years away though right? Even if we get some this year, they'll be very immature. When you look at Arm based stuff, especially the Pi 5 and similar, it goes without saying that their time is now.
Yeah, you're not wrong. I'm not saying it's soon, there's clearly a lot of work to be done in the space still, I'm just excited for unencumbered processor designs.
RISC-V is exciting for chip manufacturers, not sure why end users should be. I personally don’t care whether the CPU in my system required the producer to pay a license fee.