An important part of being a retrocomputerist is being able to tell the difference between interesting and useful.
Often a technology will be incredibly useful but not interesting to you. And similarly a technology mat be incredibly interesting while not at all useful.
Personally, ARM is at the peak of usefulness and the nadir of interestingness.
I literally wrote this on a device powered by an ARM chip, but I just can't bring myself to even slightly care about them or where they'll go in the future.
And it's annoying to mention this personal disinterest in ARM because it's always countered with "but it's so useful! Your phone and console runs ARM!"
GREAT! I DON'T CARE. it's about interest, not usefulness.
@foone I have a hard time caring about ARM as an architecture, as well. I personally think the entire arch will be gone within a decade or two, probably replaced by RISC-V or another new ISA.
But it has been in some really cool stuff, and there have been a few notable examples that were interesting in and of themselves.
Intel's attempts with StrongARM and xScale were neat enough to catch my attention for a few minutes.
One of my favorites:
@cyberspice @foone I have several in my collection :)
@yestergearpc @foone I can’t remember if I still have mine or not!
@yestergearpc, but not the DEC StrongARMs? (I have one of them sat in a Risc PC. Not used it for years, though…)
@yestergearpc @foone Sharp made some heckin cool handhelds in the 90s and early 2000s
@yestergearpc @foone Fun fact: StrongARM was created by DEC; Intel only got their hands on it via a lawsuit settlement!
@yestergearpc @foone I had a sharp zaurus!