Porting it to Intal 64 (Itanium) is a waste of time - Itanium is dead now.
Longhorn wont support it. Intel dont make it.
Maybe Longhorn isnt the target - I know many guys using Itanium with Linux and are VERY happy.
Itaniums design is the clear winner comparing all x86-compatible devices (and just to clearify Iteanium isnt built uppon x86, it just supports it via software) and Intel simply does not want to see it on desktop.
And nobody needs it.
Maybe you dont need it - I dont need windows at all, another guys just uses PowerPC processors and is happy.
Itanium would be a chance to stop making the crappy x86 stuff even more complex.
x86 is just shit, it was designed as an instruction set for a wek 8-bit CPU, you should never forget this - 8 registers - bahaha.
Did you know that about 40% of x86-code time is wasted with Load/Stores and 25% of this would not be necessary if more registers would be available.
But instead of increasing the numbers of registers, Intel gives us "shadow" registers, we have absolutly no control over them.
Insine x86's are very powerful risc processors but you cannot use their features directly becaus eof the x86 instruction set. You can just hope the CPU will do it right with your code - on optimization that perform well on AMD may destroy performance on Intel, there are even big problems writing code that performs well on P3 and P4.
I voted for AMD64 - Theyre brilliant systems and probably easiest port
Just to clearify - AMD64 is just anyther incernation of x86, with throwing away this crapy instruction set you could get about 2-4x more performance out of the same silicium!
Just sad how important compatibility is
lg Clemens