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There are 386 and 486 open source reimplementations in Verilog (see z386 and z486). As far as I know, existing commercial 386/486 chips still manufactured (yes they exist!) are descendants of Cyrix work, not Intel or AMD. Consequently, VIA may be contractually holding those back rather than Intel/AMD doing anything there.

by initramfs1 hours ago|

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Thanks for that information! I have been interested in getting x86 produced in smaller nanometer (e.g. <32nm). My project: https://ei2030.github.io/FemtoTX/#about

Edit: It also appears Nvidia might also have an x86 license: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/uli-m6117c/

Also, https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-licens... (Caveat: The startup is acquainted with the Intel CEO, so it's rare for them to grant the x86 license to non-buddies.)

"Intel provided Rosaic access to an unknown Atom-class core, which enables the company to build its own custom processors based on x86 general-purpose cores, according to the report. The renowned chipmaker plans to ship Rosaic register-transfer level (RTL) code for the Atom processor core, which will let the startup build its custom system-on-chip (SoC) both at Intel Foundry and elsewhere."

What's interesting is that a startup with limited funds would most likely seek a 32-bit x86 license if a) they don't need more than 4GB of RAM, and b), if they don't want to pay AMD for the 64 bit license add-on. :)

by Conan_Kudo1 hours ago|

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I'll also point out that we've always had better starting points for open source high performance cores. SPARC and POWER both have open ISAs and open-source cores with useful performance. The UltraSPARC T1 and T2 processors were open sourced under the OpenSPARC project. POWER has the OpenPOWER project governing the Power ISA, and IBM itself created Microwatt, Chiselwatt, and the A2I/A2O cores as open source that people can build their own PowerPC systems from.

OpenFirmware came out of OpenSPARC and is also used by POWER too. Parts of it are used in ARM and RISC-V today (mostly DeviceTree, though arguably quite badly).

Nobody actually wants to make good cores for cheap. Nobody wants to make compatible systems unless forced to. That's why ARM and RISC-V are fragmented messes.

by initramfs1 hours ago|

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True, and the only reason I'm partial to x86 and even some older ARMv cores is that there is a huge existing software ecosystem already available, reducing the need to develop new bootloaders and ports, as coding hours aren't free. CISC cores are treated as if they are a dirty word, but are more versatile for covering various applications.

by Conan_Kudo1 hours ago|

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PowerPC at least still has a living ecosystem, even from the bootloader level. GRUB can boot from an OpenFirmware system. There's also yaboot if you hate yourself. ;)

I would personally love to see more Power Systems based projects. Everything is out there, just someone has to want to do something with it.

Fedora Linux even fully supports POWER8+ little-endian systems, and Fedora KDE offers a live ISO you can install on something like a Talos Workstation.

by initramfs56 minutes ago|

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There have been some PowerISA implementations, https://libre-soc.org/openpower/ although libre project had a major setback a few years ago:

https://lists.libre-soc.org/pipermail/libre-soc-dev/2024-Sep...

by BirAdam19 minutes ago|

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There’s Vortex86 and VIA. VIA’s rights came from Cyrix, and this is where Zhaoxin‘s rights come from.

by initramfs16 minutes ago|

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Thanks for supplying the chain of licensure!

by justsomehnguy30 minutes ago|

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> There were many companies that had clones in the early 90s, and I wonder whether any of them still have the rights to manufacture them.

To do that they, at least, should still exist. For most of them this is not the case.