[Mario9501]

It would be cool to have other processors like MIPS in personal computers but it would only be for a niche market as most wouldn't even bother with it.

Edit: I know that MIPS Technolgy is still making processors but only for embedded devices like routers and the like.

[Irinikus]

The word is: "ECONOMY", and it's killing us!!!

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I think the number of available CPU's will branch out again in the quantum era, which is forthcoming!

GPU compute is also in its infancy!!! Just wait until they start to produce 3-Dimensional GPU compute matrices!

[jirka]

It would be cool to have other processors like MIPS in personal computers but it would only be for a niche market as most wouldn't even bother with it.

There is the IBM POWER, at least. It's available for desktop computers, too (I'm actually posting this from my Raptor Engineering Blackbird with the POWER9 CPU... ).

[Tech_and_Music]

RISC-V is quite promising as well, especially as it is fully open source and free. It will be interesting to see how that continues to develop.

[Lady Serena Kitty]

I wonder if it would be pawssible to "MIPSilate" or "MIPSilize" the RISC-V. That is, write in support for the MIPS instruction set on the RISC-V. Maybe throw in a few other components, and it could be something that can be thrown into an SGI that lacks a CPU.

[Xav101]

I wonder if it would be pawssible to "MIPSilate" or "MIPSilize" the RISC-V.

If you feel like licensing the ISA, sure

That being said, IBM POWER is actually competitive. POWER 10 should be available in 2021. Maybe we'll see its reach expand but I don't see it reclaiming much marketshare.

SPARC is most likely dead as Fujitsu is moving to ARM. ARM will probably carve out a nice market for itself between Fujitsu, Cavium, and the upcoming Ampere chips.

[Raion]

Fujitsu is giving up on sparc? Ugh.

[Xav101]

ujitsu is giving up on sparc?

Yeah it seems so. Their last chips (based on the SPARC64 XII core) were released in 2017, along with Oracle's counterpart, the SPARC M8. The last commercial Solaris release (11.4) was in 2018. I suspect that SPARC/Solaris will be supported for a while (mainly because Oracle has said they're going to at least support Solaris through 2030, probably because they're making a fair bit on support contracts, although knowing Oracle who knows how that will go). Maybe we'll see another chip release but unlikely. Even though Fujitsu and Oracle/Sun were pushing SPARC development, it wasn't really reclaiming marketshare.

[Raion]

Edit nearly a year late, but Fujitsu is moving to ARM because their installed base is mostly Solaris.

[karpour]

Interesting. What are MIPS cores used mostly these days?

I still have quite a few handhelds from before ARM dominated portable devices that use MIPS processors.