The same old arguments...

Posted Dec 7, 2025 10:10 UTC (Sun) by MortenSickel (subscriber, #3238)
In reply to: The same old arguments... by mirabilos
Parent article: Eventual Rust in CPython

>> There shouldn't be a handful of users on niche OS/hardware combos holding back a
>> project that's used by tens of millions.

>But they should!
>This is how we get hobbyist architectures, too.

No. Linux was initially written for 80386 that was pretty far from hobbyist in the early '90ies. As a student back then, I had a 8086 myself, dreaming if being able to buy an 80286. I had access to 80386 PCs at the university. (as well as a few other professional systems) Many of the hobbyist architectures today are the former professional architectures. (when I could take over and take home the HPUX workstation I had used at work around 2000, that felt pretty cool and I was looking into install linux on it, but it turned out that I had other things to do with my life, so it ended up in electronic waste)

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The same old arguments...

Posted Dec 7, 2025 21:02 UTC (Sun) by mirabilos (subscriber, #84359) [Link]

It was hobbyist back then compared to the other Unix workstations. It was “the cheap PC”.

That it was still expensive in Europe doesn’t detract from the relative cheapness and hobbyist-ness.

I also only had an 8088 back in 1991. But the 80386 and systems with it had already been on the (american, I guess) market for years (1985 and 1986, respectively). And you kinda need one for Unix, the 80286 and below don’t have the infrastructure to support it easily. The m68k series, also a favourite by hobbyists at that time, did, so it was pure chance Torvalds did Intel first.