Ixnay WinNT on Alpha 205
Thanks to Jason Perlow for sending us the
story that Compaq has laid off roughly 100 engineers responsible for WinNT on the Alpha platform, and will be not be doing more development on it. It's an interesting development, especially taken in light of Compaq's recent push with Linux, True64, and OpenVMS as the OSes (OSi?) of choice with the Alpha platform.
Re:Er, there is an alternative explanation... (Score:1)
Re:It's not "OSi" (Score:1)
Oh, let me guess...
1 virus, 2 virii, 3 viriii, 4 viriv...
If you are going to grammar-flame, make sure you at least know your grammar...
NT is going nowhere (Score:1)
TedC
MadDog (Score:2)
amen (Score:1)
but i'd also like to add that it should be about time that people see that Compaq's aren't that good.. at least in my feeble opinion. Then again, put linux on it, and the world's a better place.
GCC vs Commercial compiler w/ Linux. (Score:2)
But, the only thing we found was for Tru64, so the "chiefs" decided to get some more SGI's, and keep the commercial UNIX problems all with one company. :-( I do know for a fact though, that if the preformance (espically FP w/ Fortran) would have been there from a commercial Linux compiler, not only would there be a Alpha Linux box here, but a couple PIII's running Linux too. For pure hardware preformance, there would have been a lot of nice hardware we could have got for the price of the Origin and Octane we got insted.
In the end, brand loyalty won, because it came down to a risk on something unknown, with questionable preformance from unknow compilers, compared to knowing how SGI would screw us already. As for Linux developed with a commercial compiler I say YES! I have long been a believer that people who don't optimize thier compiles, but go out and spend $700 more for a CPU that runs 20% faster are total idiots! It depends much on if the distribution was put together with the compiler, or if the compiler is included, and the price tag. Actually, I have thought about this for over a year now, and I think it was last summer some time I came to this conclusion:
"If someone is selling a C compiler for Linux, and they claim it is better than GCC, why in the world don't they bundle it with a whole Linux distribution that was compiled with thier compiler?"
If in fact the preformance was better, you may well be able to spend say $100 to $300 on a commercial compiler, and get a system that was 35% faster overall. I mean, even GCC can make your system up to 30% faster if you use the right flags (see my tests [current.nu] and the claims of Mandrake Linux). People are always looking for the latest greatest hardware boosts for an edge, and it's very short sighted to think about spending all that money on faster hardware when you have the source code right in front of you, and your runing unoptimized binaries.
If Intel REALLY wanted to support Linux, they would port thier compiler to Linux (which is an OUTSTANDING C compiler for x86), and let VAResearch sell Red Hat recompiled optimized for each specific CPU using Intel's compiler. They would probably see a preformance boost that they can't get out of hardware alone.
Along those lines, I also believe that AMD should really start backing the GCC project by donating half a dozen of thier new Athlon processors to the top developers in GCC. If they did that, and shiped instruction set specs and details, there could be a -march=athlon flag that could potential put thier preformance WAY ahead of PIII.
I'm also hoping that IBM pays some close attention to GCC now that they are supporting the Linux community, with the G3 and the older Cyrix based stuff they still own, they could really make Linux on thier hardware "wake people up."
Don't get me wrong, I think GCC is doing pretty darn well. But I do think that GCC development and support is much more important than elevating Linus to the level of a god.
Re:die!! (Score:1)
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Re:MS Troll (Score:1)
Re:Er, there is an alternative explanation... (Score:1)
I will never understand marketing. Why did Compaq buy Digital anyway? It sure smells like when SGI bought Cray.
Re:It's not "OSi" (Score:1)
I wouldn't think so.. (Score:1)
cheers,
-o
Re:Er, there is an alternative explanation... (Score:1)
And anyway, to get close to, say, an XP1000 at 667MHz, you need a quad 550MHz PIII Xeon (and that is assuming your task scales to at least 80% on four processors), so at those performance levels, price/performance for the Alpha is better than for Intel (quad Xeon boxes are very expensive).
Re:unix wins again (Score:1)
Sigh. (Score:2)
You know, is there any way that Digital could make the alpha-nt source available to the public? I know, it's a crazy idea, and I'm almost positive that MS would have fits over it.. but is it possible they made an oversight and Digital could release it?
This is the reason free software can be so beneficial - alpha-NT would have continued unhindered if it had a developer base independent of the company. Now it's just going to sink for no reason other than economics. :/
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Nope (Score:1)
First of all, every news source that I've seen (except for ZDnet, surprise surprise), has stated that Compaq isn't ending their Win64-Alpha development, only their Win32-Alpha support. Anyone who's bought an NT-Alpha box anytime recently isn't stuck at a dead-end -- if they want to upgrade, they'd move to Win64 when it's available and get themselves a nice performance boost since NT/Win would finally be utilizing the 64-bit architecture.
As for your point about Intel, they don't have Microsoft by the balls, because on the server end, Intel is struggling to get their 64-bit architecture to work. At this point, it's anybody's guess which will come out first: Win64 or Merced. As for the x86-compatible end, Intel potentially has a huge battle on its hands against AMD.
Lastly, Microsoft has very close relations with Compaq. If Compaq's move were going to jeopardize Microsoft, Microsoft easily has enough money to invest in Compaq to make sure that this particular division (NT-Win32-Alpha) stays afloat. You don't think Compaq actually announced this move without discussing it with Microsoft, do you?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Makes sense to me... (Score:1)
Maybe they're getting out of NT to give AMD a chance at it? Nah, couldn't be.
The Unix and Linux camps are less taken in by Intel's marketing, and are more likely to try alternative solutions. Anyways, it's a possibility!
Some minor points... (Score:2)
First, I've never had a problem with anything made by Compaq (except for their consumer-level stuff, which is about the same as anybody else's.) I am writing this on a (circa) 1995 Deskpro that has never had any hardware problems at all.
and their crappy dealer-based sales system
As opposed to Digital's dealer-based sales system?
(yes, Digital had dealers, just like Compaq.. and the only thing required to become one was a PO from a customer worth $15000 or more.)
I'm sorry to hear about your problems with Compaq, but in truth, my experiences with Digital (pre-Compaq) are just as bad - how about a hard drive that failed, and Digital doesn't have any to replace it - so they said "we've got that on back-order right now, we expect stock in 3 to 6 weeks." _FIVE MONTHS LATER_ our hard drive arrived.
I for one welcomed the purchase by Compaq.
Our top programmer gave us a talk explaining that "NT" had originally stood for N10 ("N-ten")
Your programmer was wrong. NT stood for "New Technology" - as in "not Windows 3.x" - it came from a new codebase, whereas the old (3.x) code stemmed from what was just a graphical shell (no multitasking, networking, memory management, etc..)
Re:BILL DID NOT DO 640K YES HE DID! (Score:1)
unix wins again (Score:1)
Re:It's not "OSi" (Score:1)
as we can probably see. I have a friend who actually took Latin in school but insists that the plural of "Unix" is "Unixii".
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A bit of a surprise (Score:1)
UGS was betting that Compaq would nuke the Tru64 division and that NT was the future, but it looks like they were wrong. (Maybe they'll send me all the now useless workstations....)
NT Alpha troubles... (Score:1)
32bit support due to a trick, NT use only 32bit of the adress space (the first and last 2gb of the 64bit using sign extension). That is due to the number of DWORD in Win32 API that are used to pass pointers (HWND (windows structures) are DWORD, as well as many others things).
Lack of application for NT/Alpha, there is FX!32 (run NT/Intel binaries), but even if it's fast it's still emulation.
If you'd have to run a big server would you use WinNT/Alpha or Tru64? (Note: I have an Linux#Alpha machine) Intel processor are still best price/performance and adequate for most servers.
Reducing system costs (Score:1)
It looks to me like Compaq is looking to reduce system costs in the server area. Particularly in the lower end of the market an OS like NT makes up a significant portion of a systems total cost. Especially in the user license area.
Maybe M$ went and increased the licensing cost for W2K.
Then again it could just be they are cutting out an area of the business that just did make much money.
Re:BILL DID NOT DO 640K YES HE DID! (Score:2)
Well, to be fair both MS and IBM thought DOS was going to be dead meat under 286+ machines and attempted to replace it. Of course, the replacement, OS/2, was a disaster until about 1992. Then someone at MS figured out that they could kluge a protected mode extender onto DOS and tell IBM to screw themselves, and most PCs are still running with that solution (Windows) to this day, making everyone's head hurt.
On the other hand, load up WP 4.2 and Lotus 1-2-3 2.x -- You can still get a lot of work done with 640K.
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Makes you wonder when/if they'll port for W2K (Score:1)
Guess that means W2K/WNT is not doing as well as Bill G would have us believe
Re:BILL DID NOT DO 640K (Score:2)
Wasn't IBM's big mistake putting the 384K ROM space at the top of real memory, instead of the bottom? My understanding is that IBM did it this way only because that's how Apple did it (top 16K of the ]['s 64K.)
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But will Compaq still support NT on Intel x86? (Score:1)
Now we know for sure (Score:1)
They've obviously been testing it for years at Motorola, but this excercise proves they've perfected it.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
Re:A bit of a surprise (Score:1)
Re:It's not "OSi" (Score:1)
Wrong! "Bus" is short for "omnibus", which is certainly Latin
Re:Killing alpha (Score:1)
Runs Linux like a champ, although I'm going to DU pretty soon.
cheers,
-o
BILL DID NOT DO 640K (Score:1)
Still uses GCC, right ;-) (Score:2)
People known to be working on getting GCC working better on Alpha are: Richard Henderson, David Mosberger, Catherine Moore. If you think any OS that uses GCC is something you would like to support, thank these people, and the others at GCC/EGCS [cygnus.com], they are the ones that will give you the freedom to run something other than WinNT and Tru64 on your Alpha.
Compaq (Score:1)
Obscure
Messy
Proprietary
And
Quirky
Now that Compaq is on the ropes, all I need is a good Acronym for DELL.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
Re:The end of Alpha at hand? (Score:1)
You never hear anyone say 'its too bad that SPARC doesn't support NT, they could have some real market share if they did' or 'Gee AS400 is doomed since it only runs some minicomputer OS and not NT'.
what I find particularly funny... (Score:1)
We are talking about NT here. The "Microsoft Monopoly". Like they can't go and work for some other company and make good money? They have a good understanding of alternative architectures and NT. Why not just move on, maybe work on getting NT to work smoothly w/Merced (another 64 bit processor)?
LanMan is not NetWare (Score:2)
It certainly works very differently from NetWare, for one it ran NetBEUI and NetBIOS-over-TCP/IP. If you wrote your DOS app on the LanMan APIs, you're pretty much stuck on either DOS, OS/2, or Windows. (These were the days before 'WinSock' - APIs were pretty much NOS-specific.)
I think the guy's concern is that they is no NetBEUI support in Linux, and the MS DOS TCP/IP software cuts pretty significantly into your 640K.
(One solution might be to look at the book "Unauthorized Windows 95" by Andrew Schulman . In the book he describes how to use Win95 to create a 32-bit version of DOS, complete with protected mode networking.)
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Re:Not Exactly (Score:2)
But, yes, the Microsoft C compiler shows well on NT/Alpha SPEC benchmarks. Problem is, most of the common binaries are FX!32 emulation. But, for people working with source, NT/Alpha is a decent choice. I only wish GCC was as good for Alpha.
So, for example the scientific community or number crunchers who write thier own code can benifit from NT/Alpha, but people who rely on commercial software for things like graphics, sound, video, database, etc, don't get that benifit, and NT/Alpha isn't that great a choice (unless, of course, they get NT/Alpha native commercial binaries).
Re:It's not "OSi" (Score:1)
Re:It's not "OSi" (Score:1)
This is annoying (Score:1)
We'd had an annoying time with Compaq's Intel boxes, and their crappy dealer-based sales system, and their pathetic support, so when we wanted some new high-end kit to run NT we happily bought DEC Alphas because the were big and fast and made by DEC, who had always supported us well with our DECStations/Microvaxen etc. This was about 1994 I suppose.
At the time, NT was more multiplatform than Linux (eek!) as it ran on Intel, Alpha, MIPS and PPC. Our top programmer gave us a talk explaining that "NT" had originally stood for N10 ("N-ten") a prototype chip that never went into production.
You can imagine our feelings, some years later, when DEC (good service) was bought by Compaq (terrible service by half-trained teenagers).
Recently we had a dodgy ethernet card on one of our NT Alphas, so our Compaq dealer, three days later, sent out a witless fool who half-overwrote the BIOS and left it unbootable for another day.
So now there will be no NT/Alpha expertise left within the useless parent company either.
If we could remote-boot (via BOOTP) into DOS 7 with a small-memory-footprint net client that could see a SAMBA server, we'd dump this rubbish and never pay a penny for NT again. But sadly, only a NETBEUI-based client is small enough at the moment.
george
Re:The end of Alpha at hand? (Score:1)
Re:NT is going nowhere (Score:1)
Desktop blinders? (Score:1)
I think too many slashdotters
Re:Some minor points... (Score:1)
"New Technology" was retrofitted to the NT monicker by the marketing department.
As for the Dec/Compaq thing - maybe we just had good luck with Dec and (ongoing) bad luck with Compaq.
george
Bad reporting = Wild rumors (Score:2)
The engineers layed off worked on the NT4 port to Alpha. That is done and dusted, there is no more work to be done in that field now. The next Alpha NT move is to Win64, and that port is being developed and driven entirely in-house at Microsoft.
NT is not dead on Alpha. If Windows 2000 scales as well as Microsoft are predicting, and the Win64 Alpha version gets finished as planned, then a lot of companies are going to be very interested in combining this with the horsepower Compaqs imminent Wildfire (Alpha) platform provides. If anything it will put NT Alpha in more direct competition with big UNIX systems, an area of competition it's been denied so far due to NT's lack of scalability.
Alpha also has a very rosey future. A
This story about the end of Alpha NT is just that, a story. Pure press fiction and FUD.
Macka
Re:Intel Monopoly???? (Score:1)
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Re: (Score:1)
Re:BILL DID NOT DO 640K (Score:1)
> space at the top of real memory, instead of the
> bottom? My understanding is that IBM did it this
> way only because that's how Apple did it (top
> 16K of the ]['s 64K.)
No. Placement of the ROM is a processor issue. After reset goes inactive, your processor starts executing at a certain "easy" address. Like 0 (Z80), 0xffff:0? (8086) or 0x7ffe (Transputer).
So, on x86, you have to put your ROM near the end of the memory. If I remember correctly, even modern x86 processors start in 8086 mode near the 1Mb mark.
Roger.
Dude, your so wrong (Score:1)
There isn't any apps! (Score:1)
Does this make NT single platform again?
Re:The OS Still Holds Alpha Back (Score:1)
In response to your comments on GCC, I agree with you wholeheartedly. GCC does not produce fast code on the Alpha platform.
However there is about to be an option. Compaq is porting their fortran and C compilers to Linux as we speak. The Fortran Compiler is already out in beta release and it is a dream. I have achieved at least a 2X speedup using the same code and as much as 5X depending on what I am working with. If the C compiler is nearly this good I'll be hooked.
This brings me to an interesting question. I Strongly doubt that Compaq will ever release the source code for these compilers. For me this is not an issue because I'm not really up to compiler development and for in house scientific applications speed is the only concern. However, what do you people think about using these compilers for developing linux distributions? If there is a significant advantage to using this technology on alphas running linux will people continue to stick with egcs/gcc?
Re:Killing alpha (Score:1)
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Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
Re:It's not "OSi" (Score:1)
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
Re:NT's multiplatform dream gone. (Score:1)
Not true by far. (Score:1)
It makes sense: Let M$ fund it! (Score:1)
Now, the Alpha may be loosing its edge, what with AMD's Athlon at 650 MHz and doing well in performance, but the Alpha is still a much cleaner design then anything Intel-ish. And Merced seems to be turing into yet another extension to the x86 line, instead of leaving the 8086 behind in 1969 like it originally was going to. But that is another story...
Re:I wouldn't think so.. (Score:1)
Not according to the Digital employees and resellers I have talked to. They report selling more OpenVMS based Alphas than NT based ones, and more Tru64 based Alphas than OpenVMS ones. They also report that Digital and the resellers make considerably better margins on OpenVMS and Tru64 based machines than on NT based machines.
Re:Er, there is an alternative explanation... (Score:1)
Intel owns (the manufacturing) of the Alpha anyway. They're just restrained by the FTC from totally crushing the platform (that was part of the agreement when Intel settled with Digital on their lawsuit about Intel STEALING Alpha technology from Digital during some partnership dispute).
If Intel can keep their mind control lasers trained on the right people at Compaq, they can trick Compaq into killing the Alpha for them.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
Re:Great news for Intel (Score:1)
Re:Compaq, Alpha and NT (Score:1)
BTW, Alpha NT isn't very popular but there are still alot of things you can only do with NT if you run it on an Alpha.
Re:Windows 2000 Bad Timing? (Score:1)
Because NT 5 was supposed to be out soon after the Pentium II, not in 2000
Re:Sigh. (Score:2)
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Athlon and Alpha (Score:1)
Re:Bad reporting = Wild rumors (Score:2)
If you really wanna know how reliable Jay Perlow is, scan dejanews regarding "pre-release" copies of OS/2 3.0.
Wish I could afford one (Score:1)
DEC claimed that Intel stole the Alpha design for their pentiums.
Intel paid the settlement, and, then, also bought out DEC processor manufacturing business and agreed to manufacture the Alpha for however-many years. Intel also gained ownership of the strongarm CPU in this deal.
Re:BILL DID NOT DO 640K (Score:1)
As well as that, the first 1k of memory is used by the 8088 for the interrupt handler addresses, and obviously it made sense for this to be in RAM, rather than ROM.
Re:64-bit NT on Alpha LIVES (WRONG!!) (Score:1)
The statement "we will not be supporting NT on Alpha, the last revision will be NT4 SP6" is the one you should pay attention to.
Jim Finlaw is just treading water, trying to ease the hysteria this decision will cause in the market. A whole lot of companies planned to buy the new Alpha DS10's and DS20's to run Win2K and then be streamlined and ready for 32 to 64 bit conversion that Compaq swore up and down would happen. Even more companies were overjoyed that Win64 would run on their old Alpha EV5's.
Compaq is not supporting NT on Alpha, at all. Development has ceased, engineering has left the building. They are going with Merced because it's cheap, even though it doesn't exist yet.
Re:Windows 2000 Bad Timing? (Score:2)
It's important to note that Alpha has been a key propaganda weapon for Microsoft to argue that NT is competitive with the big unix iron. Many of their boasts (such as 10,000 POP3 users on Exchange, or TerraServer - the 'worlds largest' on-line database.) derive from running NT on some very high-end Alpha equipment. The bottom line is that I can't belive MS would drop Alpha development because doing so would make NT/2000 look half as fast as far as the marketing department is concerned.
As for "64-bit ready", it's not the software, but the hardware. If MS ever gets a 64-bit OS and applicaitons out the door, you get a free performance boost with your NT/Alpha box. Of course, it seems that Microsoft is munging the 32 to 64 bit transition as bad as they munged the 16 to 32 bit transition.
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Re:Now we know for sure (Score:1)
Here's what an alleged Motorola engineer had to say about the Metrowerks deal:
http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/august/99082
See? Billy Edwards. He's the guy who's being targeted by the Intel mind-control lasers. Now all we have to do is find out who the chump is at CompEC.
Obviously, senator McCain is also targeted:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/19990820/tc/199
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
Re:Compaq (Score:1)
Dumbass Engineering for Lazy Losers
Distributors of Expensive Laminated Lead
Disguised Embezzlers and Landfill Loaders
Devastating Empire of Lawsuits and Larceny
Killing windows tax? (Score:1)
Now if we can just get everybody else to do it... B-)
Re:BILL DID NOT DO 640K (Score:1)
Actually, the 640K limit is a result of IBM's use of the 8088 processor (instead of the 8086). The 8088 only brings out enough address lines to address 1M of RAM. IBM then chose to reserve the upper 384K of space for I/O (video memory, etc) and ROM (BIOS and Microsoft BASICA).
Re:The OS Still Holds Alpha Back (Score:1)
Re:NT's multiplatform dream gone. (Score:1)
Actually it was an old DEC engineer -- the same guy who was the principal architect for VMS.
Re:BILL DID NOT DO 640K (Score:1)
A 1991 OS that acts like it's stuck on a 1981 IBM PC XT is why Linux even exists.
Re:It's not "OSi" {how about doofus?} (Score:1)
I don't think that's Latin, or even atlinay.
Re:The OS Still Holds Alpha Back (Score:2)
I've never heard that before. Is this true? I thought they used it because of executable compatibility. Do people really buy $5000 x86 machines because they run more than one OS? Any case-studies out there?
Bzzzt! (Score:1)
BTW, if compaq wanted to kill the alpha line they would just halt production. Continuing production and purposely hampering sales is incredibly stupid.
Why there was even AlphaNT in the first place (Score:1)
Re: MMX/Altivec like instructions (Score:1)
The Alpha architecture has no need of MMX like gimics to hide multimedia shortcomings.
Maybe so.... (Score:1)
and a lot of their top-brass has left (whether fired our on their own).
Definitely a lot of restructuring going on.
Re:But will Compaq still support NT on Intel x86? (Score:1)
-witz
Does MS really care? (Score:1)
Compaq can stop supporting NT/Alpha development and immediately save lots of money that wasn't being made up in sales. If MS really wants NT/Alpha, let them pay for it.
Compaq just shot MS in the head. (Score:1)
With no production merced chips due for months and months, and no Alpha Win2K who is going to develop the user applications for Win64 and on what? The DECWest team was developing the Win64 VC++ compiler on the Alpha Win2K platform, which is dead now. Compaq has just shot MS in the head and themselves in the market.
Digital became easy prey for the recent Compaq takeover after the company took a serious nose dive following the first attempted "merger". While I wouldn't want to mention names, I can't help but think that the $300 million golden parachute that Bob Palmer jumped out of Digital with could have been quite an incentive for driving the company into the ground - had he known in advance that he would be so rewarded.
This latest decision is just one of many that hilight Compaq's total misunderstanding of computer technology and what a "technology leader" is. By killing the undernourished Digital products, some of which sold themselves with no advertising *at all*, Compaq has proven that they are not a "technology" company at all. They merely sell (or kill) what other, better companies innovate. They have no respect for high end, high speed advanced technologies or the kind of investment that produced the axiom: "if you can afford it, buy Digital Alpha.. if you can't, buy Dell or HP".
Mark Minasi wrote about Digital Cluster for NT. A clustering product that was the code base for MSCS. DCNT was done, paid for. It was a high availability 2 node cluster that ran on standard NT and supported SQL, Oracle, Netscape Server, IIS, MCIS and Network Interface failover to name a few. It was a simple, small but effective entry level clustering product. This product could have been given away FREE as and incentive to companies to buy 2 Compaq servers (it runs well even on low end cheap boxes) with standard NT while providing a vehicle for migration to MS Enterprise server and MSCS. This product was one of the first killed by Compaq after the merger. When a company totally *ignores* an opportunity to leverage server sales FREE, they are STUPID.
In the industry, there has never been any question which platform was better. Alpha has always been superior in performance, but never price. This isn't a fault in the technology, but the management who could not come up with a way to lower chip costs (like using 3rd party OEMs, such as API and finding production partners). It has been nearly 2 years since Digital produced their last processor, tied up in litigation with Intel - they were unable to go to market until just the last few months with a new line of processors: the EV6. In benchmark tests the new Alpha chips outperformed the xeon by 5 to 1. The ES40 (quad EV6) was the target platform for Win64, and would have made MS a solid contender in the enterprise. Alpha was the only real 64bit platform to develop and test on, and Compaq would have beat intel to the market on 64bit Win2K by anywhere from 3 months to 3 years. The opportunity was tremendous, the market was wide open, everyone in NT Alpha was psyched to be on top again - there was no avoiding it... or so it seemed.
So, how do IT directors feel about Compaq now that they have backpeddled on their initial promises that they would support NT on Alpha? Betrayed, decieved.. and certain that Sun, HPUX and Dell's Linux offerings will get much more favorable attention in the future. Business won't soon forget being abandoned by Compaq and Wall Street Analysts are sure to notice that the decisions made by Compaq since the merger are either grossly stupid, or circumstantial evidence of collusion to monopolize the industry around the MS operating system and the Intel processor platform.
We're sad to see Alpha being killed off like this. Technology that good deserved better, and so did the user community.
Boooooo!
Re:NT Alpha troubles... (Score:2)
I thought there was some speculation that 64-bit NT would ship on the Alpha sometime next year, before Merced can make it out the door. I wonder if NT/Alpha is really being killed, or Microsoft is just picking up all the development under some secret back-slapping deal.
Regardless, Compaq/DEC needs to start marketing the hardware better at people who buy large x86 servers.
As for Alpha applications, it seems that there are very few workstation apps, but server applications seem aplenty. Specifically, all of the Microsoft stuff (SQL, Exchange, etc) runs on Alpha.
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Re:Compaq, Alpha and NT (Score:1)
For more information on current alpha processor specs see:
http://www.alpha-processor.com/
This generation of chips was demoed at 1Ghz in June.
The current benchmarks are more like 5 times faster than the xeon, not 3 times faster than the celeron.
It's not "OSi" (Score:2)
Re:Hemos gets it wrong yet again... (Score:1)
The statement was that there will be no "Alpha NT revisions after NT 4 SP6". Are you heading for the unemployment office?
NT will be a better UNIX than UNIX! (Score:1)
I'm working at an ISP here in Northern Ohio. I recently got hired in here to design the network and hook up the Cisco, etc. etc. My boss wanted to go with NT. I winced. After some persuasion, we decided to go with Linux.
I can't see too many corporations that are jumping on the NT bandwagon (which is a bandwagon in name only, produced by MS-Strongarm(tm)), unless they have some pretty PH-Bosses reading those NT-ad-peppered "IT Management" magazines.
And now Compaq is dumping NT and staying with Linux? My oh my looks like Bill might be as wrong about this one as he was about 640k...
May the penguin be with you.
----- if ($anyone_cares) {print "Just Another Perl Newbie"}
Re:64-bit NT on Alpha LIVES (WRONG!!) (Score:1)
So, yeah, the only people being asked to stay on are finishing NT4 SP6. Most of the contractors aren't reporting unless they're coming in to use the internal job search facilities. The only folks still at MS are FTE's collecting the equipment that was signed out to them for use at MS, so they will get their severence package. Rumor has it that intel and MS are scavenging 64 bit developers.. they'll probably back a van up to the front door of the site and hire people on the way out the door.
Yesterday the whole site was a ghost town and MS still hadn't responded to the news. I have yet to see an official statement by MS internally or externally. Alpha on NT is dead, everyone working on Alpha Win2K 32 AND 64 has nothing more to do. Most of the contractors who were co-located at MS have already handed in their credentials and are looking for work.
Re:unix wins again (Score:2)
Dropping WinNT support for the Alpha will probably have a short term effect of decreasing Alpha sales. If Linux and other UNIXes catch on more, the Alpha sales could rebound, except this time with UNIXes instead of NT on them. However, if they don't, Compaq could just shift its focus to Wintel and drop the Alpha entirely.
So, this could be one of two things:
1) Compaq signalling they'd rather concentrate on UNIX than WinNT
2) Compaq signalling they'd rather concentrate on Intel-compatible chips than Alpha
Re:Bad reporting = Wild rumors (Score:1)
I'm unemployed.
The only people working are finishing NT4 SP6.
Er, there is an alternative explanation... (Score:1)
THIS STORY IS BASED ON PEOPLE GETTING LAID OFF (Score:1)
I don't care who Jay Perlow is... I'm looking for a new job.
Re:It's not "OSi" {how about doofus?} (Score:1)
vy-ree-usses (Score:1)
`vy-ree-ee'....
Liked this remark... (Score:2)
Golly Beav, why would Compaq, a company that is having some financial turbulence, want to concentrate on providing the resources they have available now instead of waiting on another company to provide a product (64 bit NT; stay with me here) that many people are saying they may never ship?
Gee Wally, I dunno; maybe there are some things we just aren't meant to know.
Not Exactly (Score:2)
Do people really buy $5000 x86 machines because they run more than one OS?
That's not exactly what I meant about Intel Hardware. What I meant was they can run NT if they are use to Windows, and get full system preformance expectations from the hardware with NT. They can run Linux or FreeBSD, and get the preformance they expect.
With Alpha, you can only get the preformance you would expect from an alpha if you run Tru64. If you run Linux, or NT, or anything else, your preformance will not be all that it could be.
The OS Still Holds Alpha Back (Score:3)
Alpha hardware has always been ahead, don't be fooled by the fact that people are saying how slow the Multia is, that came out when Intel only had 386's, and was dang fast for the time. Alphas are still fast, but you can't compare the old Alphas to the new Intels.
The Alpha market has problems because Tru64 UNIX costs soo much, and the compiler is another big $$$ on top of that. But, if you want to get the most out of your Alpha, you buy them.
If people out there really want to preserve Alpha as a choice in the CPU market, Linux could be an answer in the future, but it isn't now. Linux on Alpha is plagued with a few problems yet (or maybe it's just Red Hat Linux for Alpha?). In addition, gcc isn't bringing executable preformance to the levels of the commercial compilers on this hardware (more important that Linux itself).
Compaq would be wise to take some of the money they save cutting NT, and put a small fraction of that into patching up GCC for Alpha... Or, porting some commercial compilers to Linux/Alpha and selling them at a reasonable price (although this is a less preferable option).
If GCC can reach the level of efficency on Alpha hardware that it has reached on Intel (and now AMD hardware, see PGCC), Alpha will make a BIG come back. But, if Merced comes out before this happens, all bets are off. Alpha can beat Merced, but it will need the support of people NOW, not when Merced arrives. (Any Compaq guys out there? Hay, Mad Dog, how `bout getting the GCC guys a couple more 21264's, then we would all be happier!)