Reply To: Is binary Translating i386/x86_64 to mill code practical?

Indeed, binary translation would be the way to get reasonable (or even good) speed while running a nonnative instruction set. Its just that there are probably lots of corner cases that would require complete emulation of the x86 cpu and system (precise exception semantics and probably the x86 memory addressing) at least some of the time.
Anyway, this has been done before on multiple CPU architectures, so there is probably also a way to do it with a mill CPU. It just made me think that the wholly admirable goal on which Transmeta was based — running x86 code on a simpler, low power CPU by doing all of the instruction decoding and scheduling in software — might be within reach as just one of the possible applications of a mill CPU. Running code compiled for mill will be even better, but that requires recompiling from source and might not work out of the box, at least initially, so having the option of x86 binary compatibility probably helps to make inroads in markets like desktop and server systems.

It’s not a trivial thing to build a fully compatible binary translator however, so I can imagine this is not yet on the radar for some time to come.