The PSYCHO KILLER of processor architectures, Itanium.

In the modern day there are only really two popular and supported processor architectures, x86-64 for desktops and laptops, and ARMv8 for phones, tablets, low-power laptops and other compact-ish gizmos.

Just over 30 years ago however we lived in a much more diverse landscape full of various architectures carried by an equally diverse set of machines, x86 by PC/AT compatibles, the Motorola 68000 series by an almost uncountable amount of systems including the Apple Macintosh line, the Commodore Amiga series and the short-lived NEXTcube workstations old Steve would peddle after leaving Apple and the various workstation RISC thinking quadrilateral offerings by DEC, SGI and HP.

The main subject of this prolonged ramble are the lads at Intel, who despite striking gold with x86 would be adamant to reinvent the wheel and replace their pampered darling about three times in the span of twenty years, which I personally find as logical as getting one of those always on-line juice presses because your blender is simply doing too good of a job at shredding fruit.