> It's the same with IA32 (and even x64) processor architecture. Intels
> chip designs would be much better if they dropped backwards
> compatibility with legacy x86 architecture and made a new architecture
> from scratch. They actually did this, and called it itanium. Sadly, it
> didn't catch on.
better is subjective, from what i gather the itanium was good for tight
scientific code but the compilers that were availible did a poor job of
getting general purpose code to run fast on it.

also iirc the first itanium had a horriblly screwed up cache design.

yes the barely usable backwards compatibility was a major part of itaniums
failing but it certainly wasn't the only reason.

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