[Info-vax] Intel proposal to simplify x86-64

[Neil Rieck]

On Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 9:57:12 AM UTC-4, John Dallman wrote:
> Intel are considering a simplification of x86-64, removing the 16-bit and 
> 32-bit modes, and changing the booting process, but retaining the ability 
> to run 32-bit applications under a 64-bit OS. 
> 
> <https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envi 
> sioning-future-simplified-architecture.html> 
> 
> Ring 0 will no longer be available to 32-bit code, and rings 1 and 2 will 
> no longer be available at all. I don't know much about how VMS on x86-64 
> emulates the four ring-equivalents that were available on VAX, Alpha and 
> Itanium, but it seemed worth raising the issue, while Intel are taking 
> comments on the plan. 
> 
> John

What comes around goes around? How many here remember that VAX-11/780 (as well as 750 and 730) could run PDP-11 code natively in compatibility mode? This ended with the release of the 8000 series (I noticed it on our VAX-8550 which was the first machine I worked on after VAX-11)

As far as the Intel proposal is concerned, "I thought" that Microsoft has already blocked running 16-bit programs on their 64-bit OS for a few years now. I had been running museumware programs like QBASIC 1.1 ,GW-BASIC 3.23 , and QuickBASIC 7.1 ("I think" they are all 16-bit) on 32-bit Windows-7 but they all refused to run on 64-bit Windows-10. All the museumware just listed can run on Windows-10 if you first run dosbox ( https://www.dosbox.com/ )

Some BASIC enthusiasts have taken it upon themselves to make old BASICs work on Windows-10. Here are two examples:
https://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/
https://qb64.com/

But this post got me thinking, I wonder if dosbox (or anything listed after it) is employing 16-bit hardware in the CPU.

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://neilrieck.net
https://neilrieck.net/links/cool_computer.html#windows