"I know some Linux users will likely squawk because they still use some decades abandoned app that is 16-bit or something, but I'm confident the kernel devs can work out a way to transparently translate the old 16-bit instructions into their closest 64-bit analogs."
I doubt it. Most of the oldest Linux software was completely open source, which means that, even if people are still using it without updating it, it is more likely to work if they recompile it to a native binary than trying to run the old binary. Admittedly, if the code is that old, neither are likely to work, but not because of 16-bit support but by using parts of the system that are no longer present.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
