wbmw, so you think the x86 product line is crap? This is the product, after all, that built the computer industry as we know it! You may think it crap, but I consider the Pentium Pro architecture - which still persists (in updated form) in the newer Centrino Pentium-M - to be the greatest processor design in the industry's history!
Think of it: This is the architecture that buried Alpha, mips, 68000, Vax, every mainframe design and drove HP to cooperate with Intel in designing a replacement for HP-Parc. It dominated the industry for more than a decade, and still is a force in mobiles. It would dominate the desktop now, if only Intel didn't change to the P4 design.
A lot of people tend to pooh-pooh this processor because it came up from the desktop, rather than down from big iron. However, it not only defeated the older mainframe architecture, but also defeated a coordinated industry attempt to counter it (RISC). While it has a rather screwy instruction set, it is also easy to manufacture and way more reliable than competing products - hardware failures are almost unknown! It also turned out to be a great platform for enhancing with all sorts of optimizations (which were thought to require a RISC approach).
The only computer design that can touch this is the IBM 360/370 series which revolutionized computer design in the 1960s and 70s by introducing the idea of assembler code which was compatiable across multiple incarnations over time. That made IBM dominant in that time, just as x86 made Intel dominant in our time.
Indeed, x86 is not crap - it is in a class above anything else in the market.
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