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I don't know why the Transputer didn't take off.

I think for two reasons.

1) "too weird". This eventually dooms all of the goofy architectures like Transputer, IA-64, Transmeta, STI Cell, etc. Nobody wants to deal with something radically different unless there are compelling long-term reasons to do so. Granted, that's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg argument. Without adoption there won't be any long-term existence of an architecture.

2) Support tools and infrastructure. Intel and ARM have an incredible variety of support software. Any new architecture is at a disadvantage unless and until all that supporting stuff is written and works well. This means compilers, IDEs, development hardware, etc. Normally the tools for a new architecture are laughably primitive compared to existing environments. Which puts early adopters at a serious disadvantage.

We're in an x86-64 / ARM duopoly now. Nothing else is really relevant. Do you see anything that could change that in the near future? I sure don't.



We could get a monopoly.

Maybe OpenRisc/Risc-V will rise. Who'da thunk in 1990 that Linux would rise?




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