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The TL;DR seems to be that if you restrict yourself to implementing an ISA from 20 years ago, your chip can indeed be patent free, but that isn't going to run modern software - maybe not even modern x86 32-bit software!



I thought windows runs on anything which supports extensions up to sse2, which is what amd64 includes.


https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/min...

Devices that run Windows 10 for desktop editions require a 1 GHz or faster processor or SoC that meets the following requirements:

* Compatible with the x86* or x64 instruction set.

* Supports PAE, NX and SSE2.

* Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW for 64-bit OS installation


Mmmh, so it seems one would be stuck on win 8.0 (for 64bit) with an original implementation of amd64. Could probably still run a lot of new software.


Or run 32-bit Windows 10 instead.


The PAE and NX requirements can be disabled in the bootloader.




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