This is the classic vintage computing pissing contest...it's been argued by geniuses and cretins and it's hubris to think you have the One True Answer.
The Z80 is a 4-bit processor (it's ALU is double pumped and 4-bits wide), right? So is the MasPar super (not 32-bits). Obviously, the 8088, mc68008 and ns32008 are 8-bits (size of data bus). And the i386SX is 16-bit. Oh, wait...the 8088 and 68008 are 20-bit processors (address bus width). Unless it's the PLCC version of the 68008, which is a 22-bit processors. IBM 360/20? 16-bit ALU, so there you go. Connection Machines? 1-bit (they're bit-serial) just like the Bendix a couple of generations earlier.
While the 68000's registers are 32-bit, the data bus is 16 bit, the A1000, A2000 and A500 that defined the range had 16-bit fetching chipsets, they literally had 24-bit address buses. None of this says "32-bit". It can't be overlooked.
Oh, please...you're the one overlooking things and marketing isn't a very good source for architectural definitions. It makes a shitload more sense to say "it's a 32-bit processor because the registers are 32bit" that it does to say "well...the 68000 and 68010 are 24-bit, the 68008 is 20 bits unless its a 68008FN where it's 22-bits, and the 68012 is 30-bits, and the everything else is 32-bits, even tho the fundamental unit of computation since the original spin is 32-bits".
At that time (open to corrections) not a lot of scientific research was done on consumer intel platforms.
We had researchers doing what I suppose might be called HPC on Sequent Symmetrys, which were i386s in the mid-80s and Pentiums by the mid-90s. There were other high-performance x86 SMP boxes that were roughly equivalent (e.g. NCR 3550). That plus some pretty good x86 FORTRAN compilers (e.g. Lehey (sp?)) made this reasonable. I also know a lot of folks who had desktop/side SMP PPros + FORTRAN to save grant money on the big iron and got useful work out of them.
Basically, x86 was way cheap and had useful amounts of FP. There's a reason x86 displaced risc; this is one. I'm sure they would have rather used something like an X/MP-48, but one plays the hand one is delt.
I have a 4-wheeled wheelbarrow/cart/whatever. I think Scotts made it, but I could be wrong (it's green with orange lettering); I got it at some big-box years ago. It's wildly easier to move than my regular wheelbarrow, precisely because you expend no effort balancing it, and it's equally easy to use pulling as pushing (even with kinda crappy small, hard wheels). It is definitely not as maneuverable as the traditional, but it's easier on (most, not all) 'uneven terrain' (again, I don't have to balance it) and it doesn't have any 'steering' other than pushing the handles so it points the direction I want to go (I do know there are more elaborate versions that have a steerable set of wheels; I got the cheap version).
I guess tl;dr: I dunno what these guys are going on about and wonder if they've ever actually tried a 4 wheel cart.
I mean, it was easy to set up, easy to use, the side pane showed the result of every expression and it was pretty. I'm guessing it fell by the wayside since Emacs and Neovim both have great Lisp plugins plus are easily scriptable.
My brother is in manufacturing. DOS is everywhere. Older things too (PDP-11? DG Nova? Seen both, semi-recently). Not just because "ain't broke, don't fix", but because when you have a cloth dying machine or brick forming machine you spent >US$5M for, that is often a bespoke install for your plant, you don't replace it because some guy who prolly slings Javascript all day sez "DOS is oooold, boomer".
These DOS machines for industrial control could probably be replaced by an Arduino or a far more reliable MCU, whereas running an actual legacy PC as a business-critical component in manufacturing has to be a bit of a nightmare by now. AI could probably do a good enough job of working out how the legacy DOS executables were intended to work.
You might notice that I never once claimed that the replacement I described would be "easy" or, for that matter, even advisable given the broader real-world constraints involved; just technically feasible in the barest sense. I don't think many people would want to use DOS to design a greenfield system of that kind today, and there's a reason for that. Yes, you can buy newly made "DOS PCs" today, but can you really ensure that today's brand new DOS PC will behave in every way that matters like the actual 30 years old DOS PC that used to control the machinery? That's not a trivial question to answer.
If you design the system from the outset to work with an actual PLC/SCADA or similar (the typical solution for hooking up to big industrial machinery of that sort) that's a bit less likely to come up as an issue, and the hardware will actually be designed for that kind of environment.
Yes, if you ignore everything that was discussed, invent time travel do you can "design the system from the outset" as the prescient you are, and pretend anyone was talking about greenfield, you get to be right. Good for you...some people just need the 'win'.
Yeah...this is "if you screw around with it enough, you void the warranty and we will no longer support it" for a potentially multimillion dollar machine.
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