Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. Product reviews and prices, software downloads, and tech news - CNET. Can the x86 Just Keep Going? In an industry known for its planned obsolescence, few technologies have lasted three decades and continue to grow more powerful with each passing year. The few that are out there, like DRAM and Motorola's 68000 processor, are chip-based. Add to that list the x86 architecture, which stands alone in the broader computer market now that Sun Microsystems' Sparc processor is on life support. There have been many attempts to knock off the x86, from Sparc to HP's PA-RISC to SGI's MIPS to DEC's Alpha. But resistance proved futile; many PA-RISC and Alpha engineers now work for Intel on the Itanium, which was also supposed to retire x86. Intel's only real competitor any more is another x86 company, AMD (NYSE: AMD).
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