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Intel/HP Release Linux SDK For IA-64

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-hack-on dept.

HerbieTMac writes: "Intel and HP are releasing HP's IA-64 emulator for Linux later this week. Particularly interesting is that this emulator will be free (as in beer) for download from Intel's and HP's Web sites."

2 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Somewhat flameish, but... by ChrisRijk · · Score: 4
    Most of the time when I see something about the Itanium these days, I just tend to ignore it. I've looked at the architecture quite a bit, and talked to people who actually design and develop chips, and I have yet to find someone who thinks the IA-64 architecture is actually any good....

    The ISA is very big and complex and doesn't actually look any simpler than the x86 ISA. The designers also seem to have pretty much missed on what a good new architecture should actually do - they concentrated on trying to maximise IPC (Instructions Per Cycle - ie how many instructions you can issue per clock cycle), when current designs have pretty much already gotten as good as practically possible. So, all that complexity to increase IPC is pretty much going to go to waste...

    I'm not that surprised it's late, consumes huge amounts of power (100W at 600MHz or something), and slower than expected. Also, given that they're going to cost $2000-$4000 each, and that Intel's own Pentium 4 (Willamette) will beat it in terms of pure performance, as well as price/performance, I don't think there's going to be much demand. (and multiprocessor Athlon motherboards will be out before too long, and there's plenty of good stuff from the RISC vendors if you wish to splash out...)

    Intel/HP would have been much better off doing something like the Alpha 21464 (a few years away), the MAJC (few months away), or some of IBMs recent POWER chips - already on sale. I kinda pity the poor guys who actually have to implement the design since the higher level architects seem to have introduced the concept of bloatware to chip design...

    Sorry, kinda been wanting to say this for a while now.

  2. Interesting license - open source developers only by Shirotae · · Score: 4

    Interesting that the license says:
    HP grants you a license to Use the Software solely for the purposes of (i) teaching and training of the IA-64 architecture by non-profit educational institutions and (ii) for developing software for Open Source operating systems.

    It seems you can't use it to develop for a proprietary OS without special permission from HP.