<story><title>Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/qualcomm-microsoft-announce-snapdragon-835-pcs-with-gigabit-lte/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>albeva</author><text>This is lunacy. It will break compatibility with nearly all software out there. From games to productivity apps. Like the stuff I actually use a PC for.</text></item><item><author>wyldfire</author><text>I look forward to learning more about this product.  I love that we&amp;#x27;re moving non-x86 into mainstream consumer products like this (and not limited to low-end chromebooks, e.g.).&lt;p&gt;ARM SoCs lack the backward compatible x86 BIOS-style bootstrap.  This is great because it&amp;#x27;s kinda crazy to think about booting into stuff like MBR, real mode, etc in 2017.  But this is bad because without good standards it&amp;#x27;s really tricky to have a generic installer for another OS.  Also, all or nearly all ARM SoCs have signed bootloaders.  Great: less fear of a rootkit&amp;#x2F;virus hiding in my system.  Awful: often used to protect subsidies or other business model hijinks; can&amp;#x27;t install an alternate OS.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>qubex</author><text>As somebody that used a DEC Alpha running Windows NT and &lt;i&gt;x&lt;/i&gt;86 applications thanks to FX!32 code translation back in the late 1990s, I think you&amp;#x27;re underestimating the usability of the code translation solution demoed by Microsoft &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. Sure, it may be Win32-only (at least for now) but if and when these platforms take off more UWP (sp?) applications will be released to take advantage of native performance. This is likely a very viable solution.</text></comment>
<story><title>Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/qualcomm-microsoft-announce-snapdragon-835-pcs-with-gigabit-lte/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>albeva</author><text>This is lunacy. It will break compatibility with nearly all software out there. From games to productivity apps. Like the stuff I actually use a PC for.</text></item><item><author>wyldfire</author><text>I look forward to learning more about this product.  I love that we&amp;#x27;re moving non-x86 into mainstream consumer products like this (and not limited to low-end chromebooks, e.g.).&lt;p&gt;ARM SoCs lack the backward compatible x86 BIOS-style bootstrap.  This is great because it&amp;#x27;s kinda crazy to think about booting into stuff like MBR, real mode, etc in 2017.  But this is bad because without good standards it&amp;#x27;s really tricky to have a generic installer for another OS.  Also, all or nearly all ARM SoCs have signed bootloaders.  Great: less fear of a rootkit&amp;#x2F;virus hiding in my system.  Awful: often used to protect subsidies or other business model hijinks; can&amp;#x27;t install an alternate OS.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wyldfire</author><text>Lunacy?  Nah, the vast majority of software that regular people use is massively I&amp;#x2F;O bound.  For the stuff that isn&amp;#x27;t (photoshop, e.g.), it will get ported.  All of those non-photoshop apps will work just fine under emulation.  Chrome and Edge will be ported, they&amp;#x27;ll work just fine.&lt;p&gt;I predict that this will have a negligible impact on PC games.  They&amp;#x27;re CPU&amp;#x2F;memory&amp;#x2F;GPU bound and will not work well under emulation.  They&amp;#x27;re not likely to get ported.  But gamers are not the target market for this product.</text></comment>