Hello
This is part of our 64bit dilemma.
I guess, reading some similar news articles, that Intel is trying to save costs and complexity on their processors by cutting the "legacy" of them. Intel calls it the "64-Bit Mode-Only Architecture". Yes, that will be the final nail in the coffin for running OS/2 on real hardware. I guess some emulators like 86Box can evolve to run ArcaOS at that time, but real hardware will be gone for us.
It's good to have the heads up about this, but the question is what we should do, as a community and as the little market that Arca Noae has. Is the answer to this question binary?
Option A: When the moment comes, let OS/2 and ArcaOS rest, switch to a different OS, and talk about the good old OS/2 times with our friends.
or
Option B: Try to do something and work in a different strategy for our community and software.
Option B will be the "
Long Term Strategy" that I insisted on the past that we should have. The short term necessities are wifi drivers, more applications, translations, etc. But the long term strategy should be to finally "free / release" OS/2 from the IBM owned binaries.
My "Dreaming In Technicolor" idea will be to first (first step of several) having an approach to run OS/2 binaries over a 64bits kernel. Create a layer that can interpret OS/2 to keep running all the OS/2 experience like native applications, the PM and WPS (GUI), etc.
Ryan C Gordon, tried it with a different approach, try to interpret an OS/2 application over Linux. But it was too much work to clone all the OS/2 APIs in one shot.
The crazy/drunk idea will be to grab a 64bits open source multi-kernel and make OS/2 run interpreted (not emulated) from it. Like grabbing the Zircon kernel (from Fuchsia OS) and developing some layers of OS/2 interpretation over it for binaries, Kernel instructions and basic $Drivers. CPI, PM, WPS and native OS/2 apps think they are running over OS/2. (of course all OS/2 native drivers will be useless at that moment).
This will require a lot of knowledge on the OS/2 kernel and the Zircon kernel and a lot of effort too.
Reference:
- May 21, 2023.
https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-proposes-x86s-a-64-bit-cpu-microarchitecture-that-does-away-with-legacy-16-bit-and-32-bit-support/- 25 May 2023.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/25/intel_proposes_dropping_16_bit_mode/- Specification Proposal x86S -
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html