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Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs

thatrez writes: "Microsoft 's Windows Advanced Server, Limited Edition, is now available for computers based on Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip. The Itanium chip supports greater amounts of system memory and offers stronger floating-point, or mathematical, capabilities than current 32-bit desktop processors. The extra memory support and the floating-point capabilities increase the performance of Web hosting, data warehousing and other applications." Now available in this case means that certain OEMs will soon be selling systems loaded with 64-bit Advanced Server, and later other manufacturers will join in. 64-bit versions of XP are expected sometime next year as well.

212 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. wow this is great news... by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'll run it on my nonexistant IA64 machine!

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
    1. Re:wow this is great news... by grammar+fascist · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'll run it on my nonexistant IA64 machine!

      Wow...you didn't even need to read the article to figure this one out - it was in the title, of all places:

      Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs

      OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. That leads me to believe that they'll be shipping 64-bit Windows on 64-bit machines. But then, you can't flame someone for doing that...

      --
      I got my Linux laptop at System76.
    2. Re:wow this is great news... by swordboy · · Score: 1

      Will I need to use the multi-monitor support to display the 64 bit BSODs?

      --

      Life is the leading cause of death in America.
  2. windows is finally catching up to linux... by mz001b · · Score: 3, Insightful

    just about 6 mos (?) after the 64-bit linux stuff was announced. It's incredible how much progress you can make with billions of $$s backing you up.

    1. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by Whyte+Wolf · · Score: 4, Offtopic

      Not to support MS here, but...

      IIRC, didn't SGI used to have IRIX running on 64 bit systems? Didn't SGI make a move to Linux? Didn't SGI assist with some 64 bit code?

      If I do remember that right, then Linux had a leg up thanks to SGI--a company that use to have a little pocket change itself :)

      --

      Beware the Whyte Wolf.

      With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels...

    2. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by Zico · · Score: 1

      Bollocks. People have been able to get 64-bit Windows since last year, the difference being that it was in beta and not fully supported. Just because RedHat et al. slapped together a 64-bit Linux distribution before doing any real QA/QC checking on it doesn't mean that they're ahead of anybody. If you think that RedHat's release was anything above beta quality itself, you're kidding yourself.

    3. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by spectecjr · · Score: 1

      just about 6 mos (?) after the 64-bit linux stuff was announced. It's incredible how much progress you can make with billions of $$s backing you up.

      What's more impressive is that it'll run most existing Windows software *without needing a recompile*.

      --
      Coming soon - pyrogyra
    4. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by psavo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      just about 6 mos (?) after the 64-bit linux stuff was announced. It's incredible how much progress you can make with billions of $$s backing you up.

      Not exactly. Remember that MS had the Alpha port of WinNT4 going, and lot of 2k/XP is based on NT (most..).
      And I really don't think that they started the port only after Intel "Announced" ia64 being available. I bet that MS has been on this port for 2-3 years minimum. Compare that to Linux then, It makes a nicer graph =)

      What I really don't understand is why MS fucked Alpha down. In my experience Alpha is STILL pretty nice player in server level (my uni runs mostly on alphas/ x86+linux)
      With alpha support it'd be much easier to support amd athlon+x86-64 (it's ev6 style bus, right?)

      --
      fucktard is a tenderhearted description
    5. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by friedo · · Score: 2

      What's more impressive is that it'll run most existing Windows software *without needing a recompile*.


      Well, it was impressive when Apple pulled a similar stunt years ago when they switched architectures. Now it's sorta expected.

    6. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by faichai · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Didn't Windows used to run on Alpha? Wasn't Alpha a 64bit chip?

      If i do remember that right then MS has had a reasonable amount of experience with 64bit too.

      Although note that IRIX was running on MIPS. MIPS and Alpha were both 64bit RISC chips. Whereas Itanium is VLIW. No one has had that much experience porting anything sizeable to a VLIW architecture, with linux it is fairly easy, a few Kernel and compiler mods, and your sorted for a fully working system...windows on the other hand...euuughhhh...I feel dirty ;-)

    7. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by Enzondio · · Score: 1
      What's more impressive is that it'll run most existing Windows software *without needing a recompile*.

      My question is how much of an advantage does software not specifically compiled for 64bit gain?

    8. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by RelliK · · Score: 2
      What I really don't understand is why MS fucked Alpha down. In my experience Alpha is STILL pretty nice player in server level (my uni runs mostly on alphas/ x86+linux)

      Ah, that's because DEC did all the porting. Yes, you heard it right: DEC did Microsoft's job for them in order to get NT on their own hardware. (Similarly, SGI ported NT to MIPS). A year or two after DEC was bought out by Compaq, they told Microsoft they are not going to do porting for them any more. Microsoft decided to kill Alpha port and made the spin that it was all Compaq's fault. There was a story on The Register about it maybe a year ago.

      --
      ___
      If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
    9. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by FatRatBastard · · Score: 3, Informative

      My question is how much of an advantage does software not specifically compiled for 64bit gain?

      None. In fact, they get slower. Check out this article (link pilfered from poster above).

      MS's (correct) mantra about it being all about the apps is gonna bite 'em in the ass on this one. Until SQL server, IIS, and the rest of the back office stuff is also native 64 bit (along with all thier dev tools) it ain't gonna be anything but an expensive, slow box.

    10. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by roca · · Score: 2

      Yeah, but the Itanium's x86 compatibility mode runs at about the speed of a Pentium 100. Macs can probably run existing Windows software faster than that using SoftPC. Seriously.

    11. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by foobar104 · · Score: 1
      Actually, I'm using 64-bit IRIX on a bunch of computers in my lab right now. Everything in the SGI MIPS product line from the Octane on up-- everything but the O2/O2+-- runs a 64-bit OS.


      But the beauty of IRIX is that 32-bit code runs alongside 64-bit code without any of that emulation stuff the article talked about. In fact, big chunks of the OS are compiled in 32-bit mode. As many have already said, only apps that need to deal with more than 2 GB of virtual memory need to be compiled with 64-bit pointers.

    12. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by roca · · Score: 2

      Software not specifically compiled for 64bit --- i.e., x86 code --- runs on the Itanium's x86 emulation layer at about the speed of a Pentium 100. This is abysmal --- an all-software emulator could probably do better.

      http://athena.tweakers.net/reviews.dsp?Document= 20 4&Page=8

    13. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by roca · · Score: 2

      NT on Alpha does not use 64bit features. It drives the Alpha in 32bit mode only.

      MS wasn't happy when Compaq pulled the plug on Alpha/NT, but with this level of support from MS, it's easy to see why Compaq made the move.

    14. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by roca · · Score: 2

      NT drove Alpha in 32-bit mode. So that doesn't count.b

    15. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by ahde · · Score: 1

      Has it even been two years since Compaq bought DEC?

    16. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by tb3 · · Score: 2
      (Similarly, SGI ported NT to MIPS).


      No, the NT kernel was originally written as a RISC kernel, and the development team hated the Intel RISC chip of the late eighties (i860?) so they wrote it for the R4000. Then they ported it to the i386 architecture, but they said it sucked. I think Microsoft did all the porting work themselves, including PowerPC and Alpha, but they never ported the apps.

      --

      www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance

    17. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by Tet · · Score: 2
      IIRC, didn't SGI used to have IRIX running on 64 bit systems? Didn't SGI make a move to Linux? Didn't SGI assist with some 64 bit code?

      If I do remember that right, then Linux had a leg up thanks to SGI


      Ermmm... no. Linux has been 64 bit for ages thanks to it Alpha and Sparc64 ports. Waaaay before Linux was a blip on SGI's radar. Hell, Linux was even fully 64-bit on Sparc64 before Solaris was. Yes, SGI has helped with the IA64 port (along with many other companies and individuals), but the fact that the codebase was already 64-bit clean has made the task considerably easier than you're implying. SGI helped port Linux to a new architecture, not to get it to 64-bits.

      --
      "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
    18. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by ostiguy · · Score: 2

      I am pretty certain that the MS SQL 64 project is running right along next to the XP-64 project.

      ostiguy

    19. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by |Cozmo| · · Score: 1

      That is true. I ran rc5 benchmarks on a 733mhz ia64 with 4 gigs of ram and it was about half the speed of a p2 450. OTOH they are fast for other things. I want one to use as a terminal server.

    20. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 2

      IIRC, NT was originally (and I mean REALLY originally) designed to be bytecode-based; you'd create a kernal and HAL for your platform of choice, and any NT app would run, because it's not compiled for the platform, but for the NT virtual machine, a-la Java. Problem was, they were ahead of their time.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    21. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by 404+error · · Score: 1

      im glad that linux now has the quick time pluggin- i enjoyed using it with windows 3.1

    22. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by jallen02 · · Score: 1

      VLIW processors are a pretty new thing. It is going to take time to get a optimized compiler. The compiler for a VLIW is going to have to be damn good. But IF they can pull off an awesome compiler VLIW chips should totally rock.. Whether or not the dev tools can do it remain to be seen. These chips still have potential.. they just are not ready for prime time

      Jeremy

    23. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by Drazi100 · · Score: 1

      hmm. thats wierd than linux is equal.. microsoft is always on beta quality.. or is it alpha?

    24. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by Pengo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We have a few irix based machines, having talking to one of the SGI guys, they said that it's a bit of a myth that the 32bit abi is significantly slower than the 64 bit abi on IRIX.

      Aparantly the 64bit architecture helps out when doing things like accessing large disks, large amounts of memory, etc. But the instructions are basically the same, so in theory.... ImageMagick will convert images at the same performance at 32bit on Irix as compiled at 64bit on Irix. (assuming that they are both running on a 64bit platform.. ie Origin 200).

      Anyway, this was from an SGI employee... who knows, maybe he is wrong... but I haven't seen any performance gains or losses to disprove what he has said.

    25. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by archen · · Score: 1

      hmm.... sometimes it seems like windows makes my 32 bit machine run like a pentium 100. Why switch to 64 bit code when you can get the junk performance just by running MS Word, Excel, Access and Mozilla all at the same time? If you want to save money you can run Mozilla twice =)

    26. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by Cyno · · Score: 1


      B-But that's not fair. SGI used to own Cray and had 64-bit stuff since I started working in this field 5 years ago. In fact, they had 64-bit, 128 processor systems in '98, possibly earlier, that were totally modular. You could build a dual processor Deskside Onyx 2 into a reality monster, a 16 to 64 processor server ( 4 refrigerator sized boxes that used a 10-baseT network just to let the processors sync with eachother ) with quad graphics pipes pushing 80 million textured polys per second with mass I/O bandwidth ( ATM, fiber, gigabit, you name it ) and several terabytes of storage space. And not just those little quake polys either. Now with an uber cray metarouter they have 512P systems on Irix 6.5.whatever... Too bad their systems were so expensive and not quite as stable as Suns. But I'm proud to have worked for them seeing all they've done for Linux and open source software. I really hope their IA64 stuff takes off. Great company!

    27. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by rasilon · · Score: 1

      Linux also runs on UltraSPARC and Alpha, both 64-bit platforms. But don't forget that NT4 also runs on the Alpha so both sides have supported 64-bit platforms for years, so it's not like MS were having to start from scratch.

    28. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by mrseth · · Score: 1

      I've been using 64bit RedHat on Alpha for many years now. It is rock solid stable. And the Compaq Tru64 compilers are excellent and make the platform even more attractive. I don't know what you did wrong, but its been working for me and doing severe service as a number cruncher for years with no trouble. Bollocks indeed.

    29. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by ksheff · · Score: 2

      The i860 never really caught on as a general purpose CPU, but was used as a specialized processor in many instances because of its floating point performance. IIRC, SGI used several of these on their first Reality Engines.

      --
      the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
    30. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by foobar104 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      There are three ABIs: o32, n32, and 64. From the abi man page:

      When an n32 program executes, IRIX sets the FR bit in the status register of the MIPS microprocessor to 1, just as it does for an n64 program. Under this setting, all 32 double precision floating point registers are enabled. This has the same performance and compatibility implications as with n64.


      The only functional difference between n32 and 64 is the size of the pointer. Under n32, sizeof(char*) is 32 bits, and under 64 it's 64 bits. That means you can address more than 2 GB of memory with the 64 ABI.

      Under both ABIs, you have access to the 128-bit "long double" type. Under n32, a "long" is an "int" (32 bits), while under 64 a "long" is a "long long" (64 bits).

      What this means is this: if you're careless, and use the "long" type in your source code, the same program compiled for the n32 ABI will probably be faster than the 64 ABI version, because you'll be able to fit more "longs" into cache.

      The moral of the story? Don't use the "long" type. If you need 32 bits, use an int, and if you need 64, use a long long.
    31. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by umeshunni · · Score: 1

      64-bit windows can run 32-bit windows apps - can 64-bit linux even run 32-bit linux let alone windows apps ?

  3. this means new books by swagr · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Advanced Server for Advanced Dummies"
    I can't wait.

    --

    -... --- .-. . -.. ..--..
  4. The IA64 is great...but.... by fenriswolf · · Score: 1

    what about XP? whos gonna run it? I have the gold release version (work for a university) and its horribly kludgy....gotta have to go with one of the *nixs for the new 64 bit intel chips...

    --
    Welcome to my land of make believe.
    1. Re:The IA64 is great...but.... by cybrthng · · Score: 1

      XP kludgy? huh? Its clean and elegant for a change. 95 was kludgy..

    2. Re:The IA64 is great...but.... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

      My concern is for Sun and IBM. Many pro MS or standards concious IT managers only have sun boxen around because intel based servers can't handle huge loads and i/o like sun hardware can.

      With IA64 many IT managers would love to switch their programming departments from c++/solaris systems to VB.net/W2k systems in the name of standards of course. Bussiness users are extremely conservative and they are the ones who are keeping intel processors in the majority of pc's sold. The Athlon is totally foreign in any corporate environment. They will continue to want to use intel based products and the IA64 will give them oppurtunity to do this. Now which OS will come default with any IA64 server purcahse? You guessed it, Windows 2k! Now if they can have an intel based server with a microsoft based operating system running their microsoft based VB.net or c#.net apps that can handle a solaris load, then they will have it made. %100 conformity.

      Windows is getting alot more stable and with clustering and switches, downtime problems are going away. This will create more headaches for unix since corporations like to buy computer equipment from the same company. Which will include servers with Windows pre-installed of course.

  5. 2 Questions... by FortKnox · · Score: 1

    Will this work with AMD's upcoming SledgeHammer??

    What kind of functionality limitations will be placed on these machines (its ms... there's always limitations...)??

    --
    Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
    1. Re:2 Questions... by mikewhittaker · · Score: 1
      No, it's "for computers based on Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip" hence it will only run on the Intel IA64 architecture.
      It seems unlikely that there is a 32-bit layer underneath, since Win64 does not fix up 64-bit alignment exceptions (any more) and hence would not run for very long!

      The IA64 instruction set is completely different from the IA32 32-bit x86 set.
      AMD's 64-bit offering has backward compatibility with IA32, and hence would not run the IA64 code natively AFAIK.

      However it would be nice to think that MS could just recompile with a different code generator option to target the AMD chip ... <oink,flap>

    2. Re:2 Questions... by psychalgia · · Score: 1

      what about *nix? does the general 64bit support that *nix provides mean it will provide support for AMD too? Also, does BSD support 64 bit? Thirdly, how do I know if my second processor is working correctly under the SMP kernel in RedHat 7.1?

      --

      ________________________________________________

  6. Win95 Nightmares by nexex · · Score: 1

    I hope that that it isn't, well maybe I do ;) (Just to see it crash and burn) that is like Windows 95, that is to say, just 32bit code hacked to run on a 64bit processor. Anyone remember Windows 95, just 16bit dos with a 32bit menu?

    --
    Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
    1. Re:Win95 Nightmares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      So, what, all 64-bit OSes must be 100% new code?

    2. Re:Win95 Nightmares by neo-phyter · · Score: 1

      "Anyone remember Windows 95"?

      yes, I remember it..... It's the only supported os at my work (federal ministry of health in Canada) [shudder]....

      reboot? hell I've kicked this thing at least 10 times already today!!

      Allan

  7. Well... by JanusFury · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the pr0n sites will find a way to use more floaating-point capabilities and less size constraints. They're so inventive.

    Next thing you know, they'll take the money out of your bank account for you, without you even having to ask, and then personally deliver the porn to your door.

    --
    using namespace slashdot;
    troll::post();
    1. Re:Well... by syntax · · Score: 1

      Next thing you know, they'll take the money out of your bank account for you, without you even having to ask, and then personally deliver the porn to your door. Girls Gone Wild does do this :)

  8. Just like microsoft by Overphiend · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yea it'll work on the 64 bit chips, by reducing their functionality to that of a 32-bit chip. Much like how it now utilizes a 32-bit chip at the level of a 16-bit chip.

    1. Re:Just like microsoft by jfdawes · · Score: 1

      You mean exactly how it utilizes a 32 bit chip.

  9. More information on the release by MoceanWorker · · Score: 1

    Here's a another helpful link related to this release

    --


    "The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
  10. Re:FlOps assist serving web pages? by psychalgia · · Score: 1

    dyanamic pages. intranets. online collaboration. The things we take for granted in the "off-line" world. This allows for more experimentation with integration.

    --

    ________________________________________________

  11. Limited Edition by pergamon · · Score: 1

    "Limited Edition"? Is this self-imposed regulation?

    1. Re:Limited Edition by ReidMaynard · · Score: 1

      It's funny, I've noticed that all the PT Cruisers are either "Touring Edition" [tinted windows / keyless entry] or "Limited Edition" [dead cow-skin added].

      "Limited Edition" is a marketing scam.

      --
      -- www.globaltics.net

      Political discussion for a new world

  12. yikes ! by ReidMaynard · · Score: 1

    Then the neighbors could see it !!

    Please, just leave it in my 10G inbasket.

    tia

    --
    -- www.globaltics.net

    Political discussion for a new world

  13. Blame Intel. by NetJunkie · · Score: 1

    Microsoft was waiting on the Itanium. They *JUST* became available in quantity. Until they are available in quantity no vendor ships servers with them. Microsoft has been holding back on their release until then.

    1. Re:Blame Intel. by Blue+Weirdo · · Score: 1

      what are you talking about. As much as intel has messed up w/ IA-64 blaming them for MS slow deployment is just plain wrong. Just for an example HP has had IA-64 systems running HP-UX for over a month now. Truth is Intel dragged its feet as long as it could in order for MS to get 64bit up and running.

    2. Re:Blame Intel. by da+groundhog · · Score: 1

      what are YOU talking about. HPUX has been up and running on IA64 for well over a YEAR now. Let's also not forget that they are the ones who pioneered alot of the early work on VLIW and that IA64 is a joint project between HP and Intel. Origonally HP was planning on doing a PA-VLIW and it was decided that they didn't have the resources to pull it off....enter Intel !!!

      --
      "...through this door all my dreams come realities, and all my realities become dreams..."
  14. C:\ONGRTLNS.W2K by Frater+219 · · Score: 1
    Some readers may recall that when Microsoft announced Windows 95, Apple ran ads congratulating them on finally releasing something resembling a usable desktop, yet at the same time mocking the deceit which claimed that Windows 95 was not based on clunky old DOS:

    C:\ONGRTLNS.W95

    Similarly, perhaps a coalition of vendors -- Sun, IBM, Compaq, Apple and the gurus of the 64-bit Linux kernel ports -- should run a congratulatory ad for this momentous event: Microsoft finally goes 64-bit.

    1. Re:C:\ONGRTLNS.W2K by blang · · Score: 2

      As far as I can recall, Window NT has been running on Alpha for years. But that port may have been due the effort of compaq's engineering people and not microsoft.

      --
      -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
    2. Re:C:\ONGRTLNS.W2K by CommanderTaco · · Score: 2, Informative

      though the alpha was a 64bit processory, the wnt port was still 32bit.

    3. Re:C:\ONGRTLNS.W2K by dilvish_the_damned · · Score: 1

      That was DEC, not Compaq. Compaq had little to do with NT on Alpha untill just a few years ago.

      --
      I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
    4. Re:C:\ONGRTLNS.W2K by dilvish_the_damned · · Score: 1

      Oops, meant digital, not DEC. Not awake yet.

      --
      I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
  15. greater fp perf == better web serving? by StandardDeviant · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sorry, maybe I'm missing something here but how does increased floating point performance equate to significantly better web serving? (either of static content or dynamic) I'm very skeptical but I'm also curious to see if there is an aspect to this I've previously missed. The increased memory addressability otoh makes perfect sense, apache sure can be a hungry beast when you lard those chillen' (yeah, I'm from the southern US ;) ) up with mod_perl et al...

  16. "Limited Edition"? by ferreth · · Score: 1

    Wonder what they mean by "Limited Edition"?

    M$ is only going to sell a limited number of copies, or it's 'limited' in features?

    --

    W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.

    1. Re:"Limited Edition"? by goldspider · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure it means Limited Security, Limited Stability, Limited Performance, Limited... well you get the point.

      --
      "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  17. This release no SledgeHammer. by Proud+Geek · · Score: 4, Informative

    This release will not work on AMD SledgeHammer. This one is particularly for the IA64 instruction set, not IA32 or x86-64. The standard Windows 2000 and Windows XP will work just fine on SledgeHammer, if you want to waste all that AMD goodness on a 32-bit Microsoft OS.

    Microsoft is also considering an x86-64 port of Windows XP, but they have not announced their decision yet.

    --

    Even Slashdot wants to hide some things

    1. Re:This release no SledgeHammer. by faichai · · Score: 1

      Funny considering how AMD used to have (still?) Windows Comapatible logos on their CPUs, that they can't get any firm MS support for their chip.

    2. Re:This release no SledgeHammer. by Strangely+Unbiased · · Score: 1

      Microsoft is also considering an x86-64 port of Windows XP, but they have not announced their decision yet.


      Do you mean Windows XP 64-bit Edition ? It's been announced a few months ago. Try www.microsoft.com/windowsxp for more info.

      --


      There is no such thing as 'world peace'.
    3. Re:This release no SledgeHammer. by Proud+Geek · · Score: 2

      That's the 64-bit port to IA64. If you read closer on the sight you linked to you will find that out. No x86-64 support has been announced.

      --

      Even Slashdot wants to hide some things

    4. Re:This release no SledgeHammer. by athlon02 · · Score: 1

      Microsoft has been pretty much pro-Intel for quite a number of years, they haven't really made huge efforts to support other CPU makers and other architectures (NOTE: I said huge efforts, I don't consider WinNT for Alpha huge), so getting MS to use a *REAL* CPU like a sledgehammer will take some doing!

    5. Re:This release no SledgeHammer. by IYagami · · Score: 1

      There is some info in The Register:

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/170 31 .html

      With this info:

      elif defined (_AMD64_)
      // These function [sic] are defined in amd64.h for the AMD64 platform.

  18. Let's take look by nick-less · · Score: 1


    Microsoft 's Windows Advanced Server, Limited Edition


    Nomen est omen

  19. In other news... by jd · · Score: 3, Funny
    William Gates III was quoted as saying that nobody would ever need more than 64 bits of memory.


    ObLinuxComment: Let's make Linux 128-bit clean, just for the hell of it, so it's ready for when someone makes a 128-bit processor to run it on. :)

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    1. Re:In other news... by jd · · Score: 2

      echo 1 > /proc/sys/geek/humor

      echo 0 > /proc/sys/geek/flame

      cat $MAIN_ARTICLE

      cat $JD_POST

      /usr/sbin/laugh --force

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  20. Re:More MCSE resumes to toss into the shredder! by psychalgia · · Score: 1
    i cant believe i actually considered going for this. What a joke. You're absolutely right, after all these guys get their W2K certs, XP will be out and they can burn em.

    btw, in regards to 64bit windows - will it crash faster now?

    --

    ________________________________________________

  21. I've been waiting for a chance to share this one.. by moniker_21 · · Score: 1

    "Windows is a 32-bit patch to a 16-bit GUI for an 8-bit operating system written for a 4-bit processor by a 2-bit company that can't stand 1-bit of competition"

    Guess now we have to think of something for a 64-bit part. And relax... it's just a joke. Laugh a little.

    --
    I posted to /. and all I got was this stupid sig
  22. Wasted Power by ActiveSex · · Score: 1

    Aren't current desktop computers already majorly overpowered? What do average desktop users need 64 bits of unbelievable number crunching power for?

    Seriously, nobody I know uses their computer to host web sites with massive traffic, or simulate nuclear reactions in real time. My friend just got a new 1.4GHz with 512 megabytes of RAM machine for university. Shocked, I asked him, why the hell did he get that much? Because he could, he said. Come on - 1.4GHZ with 512 megs for word processing?

    Thirty-two bits have sufficed for everything I ever wanted to do with a computer, and as well for practically everyone I know. Who honestly needs 64 bits, and even more speed???

    1. Re:Wasted Power by NineNine · · Score: 2

      What do average desktop users need 64 bits of unbelievable number crunching power for?


      Who said that this is for desktop users? Last I checked, there are more than a few admins and developers who read Slashdot who actually use hardware like this (and much bigger)....

    2. Re:Wasted Power by ActiveSex · · Score: 1

      Sixty-four bits is still a fuck of a lot of power. I was just pointing out that I couldn't think of many uses for it. Then again, I'm not a system administrator, so I guess that might limit my perspective. :)

    3. Re:Wasted Power by Bonker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Aren't current desktop computers already majorly overpowered? What do average desktop users need 64 bits of unbelievable number crunching power for?

      Two Words: Video Compression

      Seriously, while 64 bit processors running at 1.x GHZ will be wasted on desktops, this power is just the sort of thing to beef up existing dual and quad CPU SQL servers.

      --
      The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
    4. Re:Wasted Power by donglekey · · Score: 1

      No one is buying Itaniums for home computers. Your narrow view of computing is what is causing your confusion. Video compression, 3D graphics, high resolution 2D compositing, large databases, etc. are all things that will never be able to get 'too much power'. Everything you want to do with a computer, is not everything that is done with a computer.

      P.S. Computers will never need more than 640 KB of memory.

    5. Re:Wasted Power by Cheeze · · Score: 1

      why? because we'll need all we can get when we start decompressing our live, full-screen video feed we get off of our 28.8 modem.

      --
      Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
    6. Re:Wasted Power by Drazi100 · · Score: 1

      beter yet... why stop linux and get it for free!

    7. Re:Wasted Power by lordbrain · · Score: 1

      If nothing else,
      32 bits = 4 gigabytes of addressable memory
      64 bits = 16 exabytes of addressable memory

      And in case you need help with the SI units, click here.

      What does someone need 16 exabytes of memory for right now, I don't know, but there are applications that might need more than 4 gigabytes of memory. (For example, data warehouses.)

      (I think I did the math right for the amounts of memory, but feel free to check for yourself.)

      --

      Thank you. Thank you. Please no applause; just throw money
    8. Re:Wasted Power by archen · · Score: 1

      mac users have been using 128 bits for a while... *shrug*

    9. Re:Wasted Power by Nidak · · Score: 1

      Then G4 is a right choise for Video Compression.
      Most of thier video compression softwares are capable of using 128-bit Velocity Engine.

  23. Wait for WinAS/LE service pack 5, SE, whatever by ch-chuck · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now CodeRed can scan IP's addys for unpatched IIS machines to infect in half the time.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  24. Limited use by DrXym · · Score: 2, Informative
    Unless you need to run some honking database or memory hungry app there is little reason to use 64-bit Windows.


    All you would get for your trouble is a crippling licence fee (courtesy of MS), a dearth of 64-bit applications & drivers, slower 32-bit execution and double the memory and disk requirements. These are hardly compelling reasons to "upgrade".

    1. Re:Limited use by 4of12 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I was going to say the same thing, that, as far as current customers are concerned, this product seems to fill an incredible Non-Niche.


      It's exclusively for IA-64, which can't compete head to head with established RISC hardware yet. Also, given that the OS's for the competitive RISC hardware have been around longer, had more bugs shaken out, had more apps (eg, Oracle) developed for them, Advanced Server won't provide any kind of revenue for MS. It's all written off for the sake of future revenue.


      Like anything, they're willing to let it slog slowly up through the ranks for a few years until it gains credibility (eg, the first 2 versions of Windows and of NT). Eventually, though, all this beta testing will pay off so that in 2005 they can argue convincingly that they can provide an alternative to the big iron from IBM, Sun, HP, SGI and Compaq (DEC).


      The other benefit of this move for MS is to provide a testing ground for their code base so that if IA-64 ever does develop into something so desirable that it begins to appear in desktops, they'll have some experience for it. With the recent boost that Intel gets from killing off the Alpha competitor and from using the Alpha's carcass to improve the sickly Itanium, the IA-64 will eventually become something to be reckoned with, even if through the sheer brute force of the dollars behind it.


      For current customers, though, this OS release is a yawning opportunity to be part of MS beta test program. As with the Linux IA-64 release, it is mildly interesting, with genuine interest deferred until the point that the hardware is competitive with the established RISC vendors.


      Anyone care to compare and contrast their 64 bit foray to their first foray into the 32 bit world?

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
  25. woohoo! by ethereal · · Score: 1

    This is great! Maybe now people will quit bitching about /. not posting any Windows stories and find something else to complain about :)

    --

    Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

    1. Re:woohoo! by cybrthng · · Score: 1

      woohoo.. hardly a microsoft story. when ia64 linux was done it was hooorrraaayyy we got something cool..

      now microsoft has done it and its

      whats the point? who needs 64bit?

      hoorrayy..

  26. But Itanium is slower than P4! by Brian+Stretch · · Score: 1, Interesting


    But golly, the Itanium isn't even GHz-class while the Pentium 4 is 2GHz. Why would anyone buy such an obviously slow machine? Even a pokey 1.4GHz Athlon is faster than the Itanium, right? Quake 3 framerates must really suck!

    (Amusing how Intel went with a short pipeline at the expense of clockspeed when selling to a more technologically literate market...)

    1. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by Brian+Stretch · · Score: 1

      Oops, my <sarcasm></sarcasm> tags showed up in preview mode but didn't survive submit. Maybe Code mode will protect them.

      I run a 1.4GHz Athlon OC'd to 1.5GHz, btw.

    2. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by DarkEdgeX · · Score: 2, Informative

      The benchmarks you're referring to (the ones that placed an Itanium at a slower speed than Pentium III's or Pentium 4's) were running 32-bit code, not native 64-bit code. Intel's Itanium processor family (IA-64) are backwards compatible with their Pentium family (IA-32).. in other words, it can execute the code without any on-the-fly emulation or translation.

      The problem with this is that apperently Itanium's implementation of the IA-32 execution unit is shoddy (and thus, slow). However, code written to the native IA-64 spec (which is what this release of Windows 2000 Advanced Server is) should perform MUCH faster.

      Besides, an important thing to remember about Quake III is that it's not the CPU that matters really, it's the graphics card.

      Once more IA-64 binaries are released I think the benefits of the architecture will become clearer. (Hopefully! I'm not saying Intel can do no wrong, but basing your assessment of their processor on it's EMULATION (basically) of IA-32 is totally off-base-- IA-64 is it's native, preferred mode. IA-32 is just there to make transitioning easier.)

      --
      All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
    3. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by roca · · Score: 2

      It's technically true that Itanium doesn't use emulation or translation to run x86 code ... but they SHOULD have, because Itanium runs that code so slowly, it would probably have been faster if they'd used software emulation.

      If you look at the Spec numbers, the benefits of the architecture are already pretty clear: runs great on nice predictable toy floating point benchmarks (SpecFP), complete DOG on everything else (SpecInt). Itanium's SpecInt numbers (400) are the worst of any recently released desktop CPU. Any Athlon or Pentium 4 will blow away Itanium's performance for non-FP stuff (which includes servers). And let's not even start talking about PRICE/performance.

    4. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by roca · · Score: 2

      I'm talking about Spec benchmarks compiled for IA64, if that's not clear. Done by Intel's engineers using their own compiler.

    5. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by DarkEdgeX · · Score: 2

      I was gonna ask, glad I read the reply. ;) Very interesting, considering the way the architecture is designed, I can't imagine how they could wring poor performance out of their code unless their compiler wasn't designed to emit the correct instruction sequences. IA-64, if you read the programming manuals, is very compiler-centric-- specifically, the compiler has to order sequences of operations to best take advantage of predication and other CPU features. This is different from IA-32, where instruction sequences CAN matter, but aren't usually fine tuned on the scale IA-64 would require.

      Still, this is their first iteration of the new architecture-- I'm sure it'll take time to re-engineer it so they can squeeze the performance out of it that we expect.

      --
      All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
    6. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by roca · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've read the manuals, and I've talked to a number of CPU architects and compiler writers. They have no trouble believing how hard it is to get good performance out of the IA64 architecture.

      The fundamental problem is that IA64 is an in-order design. Your code hums along, does a load from memory, misses in the cache --- and everything stops until that value comes in. In an out-of-order machine (every other high performance CPU since the Pentium Pro in 1995), while it's waiting for that value to come in from memory, it will be executing other instructions that technically are supposed to happen AFTER the load, but don't actually depend on its value.
      The IA64 was supposed to get around this problem by providing speculative loads with alias masks and other tricks so the compiler could hoist the load and perform it super-early, long before the value was needed, so any delay due to cache miss would not impact execution. Intel's big bet was that this would make out-of-order execution unnecessary. They lost the bet, for two reasons: 1) real programs (as opposed to toy benchmarks) are too unpredictable. There just isn't enough information available at compile time to decide what can and should be loaded early, which order instructions should go in, etc. The decisions have to be made at run time by the CPU itself. 2) The cost of out-of-order execution was overestimated. In the last five years we've been able to build really big horrible superscalar out of order cores with really fast cycle times. OTOH, the Itanium's supposedly "simpler" core has a crap clock speed. Go figure.
      95% of what you read about the IA64 architecture is marketing hype. Just because it's "new" and "different" doesn't make it better. In fact, on the numbers, it appears to be worse in most cases.

    7. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by DarkEdgeX · · Score: 2

      I disagree completely-- the programming manuals are FAR from marketing hype, and the amount of documentation Intel has put out to the public so far (and so far ahead of actually releasing any working silicon) shows their commitment to this architecture. You talk about having read the manuals and spoken to CPU architects, but you seem to have no grasp on the actual way a CPU works.

      Out of order execution is HORRIBLE on performance-- you're right, CPU designers and compiler writers (and low level assembly developers) have found ways to eek out every bit of performance from current generation processors, but in an IN ORDER execution unit, all of this SPECULATION isn't needed.

      Your example of a load from memory being missed in the cache killing everything else is outright wrong. It's the COMPILER's responsibility to order the instructions such that a cache miss shouldn't ever occur. One of the hallmarks of the design is in fact that instead of doing branch prediction, EVERY branch is taken (fail or pass), and when the result of the the comparison that affects that branch is known, the code is either already in the pipe or in fact already executing (since IA-64 binaries are output in such a way that as more pipelines are added, more code can be executed SIMULTANEOUSLY).

      Your notion that there "isn't enough information available at compile time" is horseshit. If you know compiler writers that think along those lines, could you ask them when Visual Basic will quit sucking for me? Compilers can (and should) do multiple passes to gather all of the information they need, then write the most optimized and streamlined binary they can. This is in fact in the Intel documentation-- and even Intel admitted it will take time to get compilers to work as desired.

      And if you knew anything about CPU's, you'd know clock speed means crap-- AMD's Athlon has a lower clock speed, but out-performs Intel's higher-clocked Pentium 4 CPU's. If the pipeline is shorter than any CPU on the market (and thus, instructions execute MUCH faster), then the cycle count is going to be irrelevent (or inaccurate) for comparing one CPU against another.

      Again.. this is their FIRST release of the processor. You may be some anti-Intel / pro-AMD zealot, but take your preachy attitude elsewhere. I've pointed out that their current processor definately does not meet the performance people were expecting or hoping for-- but it takes TIME for an architecture to mature. Were you expecting it to out-perform everything on it's first day?

      --
      All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
    8. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by __aaedhn419 · · Score: 1

      They lost the bet, for two reasons: 1) real programs (as opposed to toy benchmarks) are too unpredictable.

      Actually, they win the bet, because Itanium's EPIC technology, among other things, allows the processor to take all possible branches and re-integrate the results later. Rather than stalling for the result of a branch, it calculates both branches, both the true and false answers, and therefore avoids the mispredicted branch problem.

      I'm sorry, but if I had mod points, I would mod you down. Your post is not correct as far as I can tell.

    9. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by roca · · Score: 2

      Yes, you can use predicated execution to avoid the need for some branches. But that only works for a few branches (where the branched-over code is a short inline block), nowhere near "all possible branches".
      PS, EPIC is Intel-marketing speak. What you are talking about was called "predicated execution" long before Intel 'invented' it.

    10. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by roca · · Score: 2

      > I disagree completely-- the programming manuals are FAR from marketing > hype, and the amount of documentation Intel has put out to the public so far > (and so far ahead of actually releasing any working silicon) shows their
      > commitment to this architecture.

      Intel actually kept the details of the design secret until very late in the game. But anyway, when I wrote "most of what you read" I meant "most of what you read IN THE PRESS". Not a lot of people look at the programming manuals.

      > It's the COMPILER's responsibility to order the instructions such that a cache > miss shouldn't ever occur.
      You should go to college and take a computer architecture class. In that class you will learn why this is fundamentally impossible. It's like a driver trying to predict which traffic lights he will have to stop at before he even leaves the house.

      > One of the hallmarks of the design is in fact that instead of doing branch\
      > prediction, EVERY branch is taken (fail or pass)

      This is called predicated execution and Intel did not invent it. It does help avoid some of the penalties of mispredicted branches, but it is not universally applicable. In many situations you still have to use real branches. Furthermore branches are just one of the things a compiler has to predict correctly for in-order execution to work well.

      > Compilers can (and should) do multiple passes to gather all of the
      > information they need, then write the most optimized and streamlined
      > binary they can.

      Sure, that is the goal. But in practice there are severe limits to the amount of information a compiler can get at compile time. It's all about predicting the future, and that's always hard and often fundamentally impossible. BTW, I just spent seven years working on my PhD on whole-program static analysis, which is all about this subject :-).

      I understand that clock speed isn't everything. I just bought an Athlon for that very reason. But a lot of the design choices in IA64 were made to *increase* the potential clock speed, so the fact that they weren't able to get the clock speed up anyway does not bode well for the architecture.

      It will take time for the architecture to mature, but most of the bad decisions are already baked into the ISA (instruction set architecture). And of course AMD (and even the Pentium 4) aren't standing around waiting for IA64 to catch up.

    11. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by Brian+Stretch · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I wasn't referring to any benchmarks, I was intending a sarcastic slam at Intel for rigging their P4 with a ridiculously long performence-killing 20 stage pipeline just so they could crank the clockspeed above what the AMD Athlon (with its much more rational 11 stage pipeline) can do. I guess I should have nixed the Quake3 comment that threw everyone. Intel has a minor marketing headache on their hands if anyone bothers to ask why the ridiculously expensive sub-GHz Itanium is a faster chip than the 2GHz P4.

      AMD should bring up this point in their marketing, actually.

      I'm betting on the AMD Hammer series (2H2002) over the second-generation Itaniums (McKinley?) regardless.

    12. Re:But Itanium is slower than P4! by DarkEdgeX · · Score: 2

      Nobody is saying Intel invented anything revolutionary (unless you're speaking of Intel claiming they designed this specific part of the system). EPIC is marketing speak though, but you're understating the importance it has-- current Itanium's only have I believe 1 or 2 pipelines, but because instructions are bundled together by the compiler to execute simultaneously, as more pipelines are added in future Itanium's, the performance will scale increasingly.

      First gen Itanium? Sucks ass, I wouldn't buy one except to experiment on or develop with. But as future generations are fabbed, we'll start to see the performance shine. Ditto for compilers as they mature.

      My money is with Intel's Itanium in the long run over AMD's 64-bit offering.

      --
      All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
  27. Intel Microsoft bed-buddies by Innominandum · · Score: 1
    Why does Intel insist on sucking Microsoft's ass? Intel has given Microsoft the opportunity of having Windows ready for the launch of IA64, at their expense. This could have been an opportunity to lessen Microsoft's grip over the next generation of computers.

    If a quality operating system (which are abundant for IA32) could have been produced for IA64 before Windows was, it would have made a huge dent in the Windows IA64 market share.

    Developers eager to develop IA64 applications would use the first operating system available. Initially, there would be more software available for the first operating system out the gate. And people would recognize the first operating system as "the" native operating system. The implications are obvious.

    Also, I have a feeling Intel will focus IA64 for on servers and stuff like that. I don't think the average person will be using this on their home for a long time. Which would be another mistake because it would lower the chances of widespread adoption. If that happens, let's hope we're using 64-bit processors in our homes by 2020. :)

    Honestly, I am still way way more interested in Alpha. (The "server focus" mistake is ongoing.) I hope they are able to continue supporting it.

    1. Re:Intel Microsoft bed-buddies by whizzird · · Score: 1

      If a quality operating system (which are abundant for IA32) could have been produced for IA64 before Windows was, it would have made a huge dent in the Windows IA64 market share.

      Linux supported the IA64 the day the chip was released. But since IA64 chips are rare, support for it didn't help Linux acceptance.

    2. Re:Intel Microsoft bed-buddies by duplicate-nickname · · Score: 1

      Hey dumb-ass.....Dell has already been selling Itanium based systems with 64-bit Redhat.

      Does this make you happy? https://www.redhat.com/software/linux/7-1_itanium. html

      --

      ÕÕ

    3. Re:Intel Microsoft bed-buddies by DeathB · · Score: 2, Informative

      What are you talking about? Windows is no less than the *third* OS out the door. HP-UX has been out on Itanum for several months, and Linux works just fine as well (I am currently logged into one of each).

      I don't know what vendors who sell HP-UX based software are doing right now, but Debian GNU/Linux has ported a very large number of packages to IA-64 and is planning on releasing it at some point not to far from now. (you can install it from Testing and Unstable already).

      Major developers know what's out there, it's only you who is in the dark.

      (may or may not be the opinions of my employer, I don't speak for them)

      --
      Would you do it for some scoobie crack?
    4. Re:Intel Microsoft bed-buddies by mikewhittaker · · Score: 1
      Hello?

      Linux, and IBM/SCO's AIX 5L (Monterey) have been running on IA64/Itanium for several months now.

      Plus Java, if you must know.

  28. Re:about time they caught up by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but it's only really been 64-bit since Solaris 7, which was 1998 I think. All the v9 (64-bit) stuff happened then, and even then, you couldn't run it properly on early Ultra 1s.

    - A.P.

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  29. Actual improvements? by SilentChris · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I'm not trying to be too "flamebait" here, but what performance improvements does 64-bit provide, in actuality? Not just in Windows, but in any operating system? From a speed standpoint, 32-bit wasn't much of an improvement over 16 (stability, of course, got better with more protected memory). But since 32-bit can handle such a large protected memory space already...

    1. Re:Actual improvements? by Kenyaman · · Score: 2, Informative

      The big bonus is that you can access a lot more memory. A lot of databases are larger than 2GB, which means they cannot be loaded into RAM on a 32-bit system (well, 3GB if you play some tricks). Since disk access is on the order of 1000 times slower than RAM access, if you can load your 12GB database into RAM and query it from there, you should see significant performance improvements.

      For editing WordPerfect documents, it's probably not that significant. :)

    2. Re:Actual improvements? by DarkMan · · Score: 2

      Sorry, 2GB of memory is nothing. I'm working with calculations that use about 4GB of disk space to hold interim values. If I could fit them all in ram, I might actually get some performence out of the x86 boxes. And those are small calculations.

      More directly, a 64 bit processor moves twice as much data around as a 32 bit processor, assuming all bits are significant. It's worth noting that an IEEE double precision number is 8 bytes (that's 64 bits) of strorage, and so a 64 bit procesor can load, add etc a double precision FP number in one operation. That helps a lot.

      It's not going to be moticable for most people, but if your doing serious calculations, then it wil show.

    3. Re:Actual improvements? by RobertEdwards · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's what we asked when we went to 32 bits. The answer is, you can address more memory, and have more memory bandwidth. Note many grapics cards these days have 128 bit architectures.

      Real world benifits? Depends on the Application and OS. Usually Databases and big imaging applications see benifits first. And remember, many machines have been 64 bits for years, Intel and Microsoft are late to this party.

      I understand that when the AS400 (basically database machine) line went from 48 bit CISC to 64 bit RISC chips several years back there were significant benifits in uptime, of all things. Seems the AS400/iSeries Single Level Store memory & storage management scheme requres a unique id for each object in memory. Bigger CPU words meant more (2 to the 12th?) id numbers were available. So, reboots to reset the counter for temporary objects were now needed only (all other things equal which they weren't) 1/2^12 as often. That's a big benifit for big iron.

    4. Re:Actual improvements? by ShavenGoat · · Score: 1

      I don't think your statement is totally correct.

      You are saying that that you can't load a data base in memory that is larger than 2 GB, but 2^32 allows 4 GB of memory. There are 4 GB of addressable memory on IA-32.

      Also, starting with the Pentium Pro (P6?), Intel added 4 more address lines, meaning that you can have up to 2^36 bits of memory.

      Of course, you can still only address 2^32 bits in your database, program, or whatever in memory as one big chunk.

      IA-64 will rock, but my SGI's and Alphas have been doing 64-bit for a while now :-)

    5. Re:Actual improvements? by Kenyaman · · Score: 1

      The first bit is reserved for a system/user mode flag. The kernel can have 2GB and user mode programs can have 2GB. You can tune some versions of Windows to give you 3GB user mode RAM.

  30. Re:greater fp perf == better web serving? by mikewhittaker · · Score: 1
    I think that the text means:
    (extra memory support, floating-point capabilities) increase the performance of (Web hosting, data warehousing and other applications)

    Don't you ?

  31. Limited Edition! by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wow, I have to get it quick - will it come with an extra disc with commentary and "making of" features?

    Does anyone know if it comes in a metal lunchbox, or tin case?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Limited Edition! by Phexro · · Score: 2

      dunno... but doesn't it seem pretty wrong to call this version of windows the "limited edition?"

      i've used lots of different versions of windows, and i thought they were all pretty limited.

  32. Re:Blame Intel. Bull. by gd23ka · · Score: 1

    Bull. The way M$Marketing works is that if they had had a 64-bit Itanium prototype they would have gleefully flaunted that months ago. Compared to IBM and Sun products, both Microsoft _and_ Linux still have a long way to go before they can live up to the demands of an enterprise server environment, especially when it comes to high availability and scalability both have a rocky road ahead of them. Whether Itanium based servers cut it there, also remains to be seen btw.

  33. 64 bit Windows by alsta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if Windows 2000 Advanced Server Limited Edition is about as much 64 bit as Windows 95 is 32 bit.

    Undoubtedly parts of this version of Windows 2000 has to remain 32 bit for compatibility. Or is Microsoft going to port Microsoft Office to 64 bit Windows as well? Unless Microsoft has implemented some type of FX!32 (DECs 32 -> 64 bit layer which "learns" and accellerates), this release of Windows may potentially be quite useless. One of the reasons people use Windows is the availability of applications.

    I can't for the life of me think that this is anything different from a marketing release where Microsoft can say "We're in the future, we're 64 bit". But it's nevertheless interesting that Microsoft has gotten something out the door that is 64 bit. Let's see how well Microsoft entrenches itself in the datacenters. My guess is that the 64 bit x86 (Intel or AMD) will become far cheaper than the Sun counterparts and thus taking over a lot, but not everything. But will Windows be the preferred platform or is Linux going to hit Microsoft where it hurts? Or perhaps Microsoft will make this .NET thing so popular that Windows will make it all the way to world domination?

    In either case, from a technical standpoint I will observe how Windows 64 bit is going. Very interesting indeed.

    Alex

    --
    Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
    1. Re:64 bit Windows by DarkEdgeX · · Score: 2, Informative

      My understanding is that everything in the core OS has been recompiled as a 64-bit binary, this would include the kernel (obviously), shell (including support DLL's and EXPLORER.EXE, for example), and most likely server components such as IIS (this is my speculation here, if IIS is still a 32-bit binary, someone speak up, because that really WOULD make the entire release almost pointless).

      But I've read on MSDN and elsewhere that Explorer and other basic (ie: integrated) components of Windows 2000 were ported to IA-64 for this release.

      --
      All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
    2. Re:64 bit Windows by I_redwolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just because it's cheaper doesn't mean it's better especially in this case (let us not compare things like linux vs windows etc). However Sun provides quality hardware and their engineering team is composed of top engineers across the world. They have been developing 64 bit platforms for quite sometime now and I don't see Windows being a 64bit platform taking over anytime soon. Simply because it hasn't been tested, windows software is usually buggy and people who actually use 64 bit platforms need reliability at all cost. They also need a stable enviroment which Sun also provides in Solaris. My guess is that 64 bit x86 (Intel or AMD) will be widely unused in big datacenters or scientific labs. However you might see an increase in information/web hosting camps but not something in any drastic proportion that would indicate a large increase in share; not even a peak.

    3. Re:64 bit Windows by foo+fighter · · Score: 1

      Or is Microsoft going to port Microsoft Office to 64 bit Windows as well?

      Yes, I'm sure they will port Office to 64 bit when they release the 64 bit client version of XP. Why they would do so for their server operating system I'm not sure.

      All of their server class software will be ported to 64 bit. That includes Exchange, SQL, IIS, etc.

      From the FAQ:

      Interoperable with existing 32-bit Windows. With Windows Advanced Server, Limited Edition customers will see transparent integration between their Windows clients and servers, and between all their Windows servers.
      also
      A key feature of Windows Advanced Server, Limited Edition is its ability to run 32-bit Windows-based applications unmodified on the 64-bit platform.
      and
      WoW64 is a 32-bit Windows subsystem that allows you to run 32 bit applications on 64-bit Windows. Because applications run slower in WoW64, for optimum performance Microsoft recommends running 32-bit applications on 32-bit hardware for optimal performance.

      You can find the FAQ at http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/64bit/aslefaq .asp

      --
      obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
    4. Re:64 bit Windows by JamieF · · Score: 1

      >My guess is that the 64 bit x86 (Intel or AMD) will become far cheaper than the Sun counterparts

      Solaris runs on x86 now and is free on machines with less than 8 CPUS. It was demonstrated as working on Itanium almost 2 years ago:
      http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/9910/sunfl as h.991025.4.html
      I would be surprised if Sun doesn't ship a production IA-64 release of Solaris when IA64 hardware is widely available.

      That means that there are multiple independent axes of competition:

      -- IA-64 vs. UltraSPARC III
      It's pretty commonly believed that IA-64 will dominate, but then again, IA-64 is very late, and Intel has shown weakness in its engineering with the P4, so it's not exactly in the bag. Linux and Solaris server buyers will happily buy whichever seems like a better deal (based on price/performance, availability, etc.), because they can just recompile their apps, or demand that their vendors do so (which works if enough customers are asking for it). Windows server buyers will buy IA-64 because they have no choice.

      -- 64-bit Solaris vs. 64-bit Windows (vs. 64-bit Linux)
      Here's where things get a bit more interesting. Except for the most trivial or acrobatically-coded apps, you can't just recompile to jump from one OS to the other, so the choice of OS will be more carefully made than the choice of hardware IMO. And here's where the scalability of Windows and Linux is called into question: can you run 64-bit Windows effectively on a 16, 32, or 64-way multiprocessing server? Because if you can't, Solaris is the only one of the three which scales from the little 1-CPU boxen up to a 64-way box such as the Ultra Enterprise 10000. Obviously IBM, HP, Compaq, et alia are also up in the high end there, but for a customer who's trying to consolidate OS's so that little and very big servers alike run the same OS, Solaris stands out. I'm not saying that it is or isn't wise to consolidate OSs, nor that there are zillions of companies who need 64-way processing, just making a point about Solaris's seemingly unique scalability in both directions. Anyone who has used all three of these OS's will also note that Solaris and especially Linux scale *down* better than Win32.

      In short, the really interesting question is, "how many CPUs can 64-bit Windows on IA-64 use effectively?" Not "how much will it cost", since that doesn't matter if its performance is unacceptable. Linux is quite capable of not performing acceptably on large MP machines, and it's free :)

      Of course, if a cluster of small MP machines suits your app, this is all irrelevant, because perhaps all you really needed was more RAM per cluster member.

    5. Re:64 bit Windows by twitter · · Score: 2
      Unless Microsoft has implemented some type of FX!32 (DECs 32 -> 64 bit layer which "learns" and accellerates), this release of Windows may potentially be quite useless.

      Windows on it's own useless? You don't say? I'm not sure how useful any MS stuff has ever been, but don't worry YOUR SOFTWARE INVESTMENT WILL BE PROTECTED WITH THE USUAL MS CARE AND CONCERN. No one would inflict needless waste for the sake of their bottom line, would they? Why does this Word 6 document look like poop?

      --

      Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    6. Re:64 bit Windows by alsta · · Score: 1

      If you would just tell a compiler to produce 64 bit binaries you would suffer terrible performance and bloated binaries. You have to do a significant amount of porting, where 32 bit integers become 64 bit integers and so on. Once your code has also been optimized, you will reap performance gains. Prior to such efforts, 64 bit is only slowing you down.

      Alex

      --
      Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
    7. Re:64 bit Windows by alsta · · Score: 1

      The point being that Microsoft has produced software that is widely in use. Hence it must fill some sort of purpose. There may also be a chance that Microsoft has come up with something quite extraordinary which we haven't figured out yet. Microsoft has already been a player in the 64 bit market with a 32 bit operating system. DEC and Microsoft had a deal where they were supporting eachother. And besides the implementation of Windows NT on Alpha being a complete joke, some people used it. Much thanks to FX!32, which could run 32 bit Intel binaries on the Alpha.

      If Microsoft hasn't done this, the Win64 implementation would be just that. A Windows with no apps. If Microsoft has done something like this where the 32 -> 64 bit subsystem learns executions and accellerates them by translation to raw 64 bit micro architecture, it might be quite interesting. As far as I know, Linux doesn't have such an implementation and Linux development flurishes when Microsoft has something that Linux doesn't.

      Other than that, I share your sentiment.

      Alex

      --
      Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
    8. Re:64 bit Windows by Cyno · · Score: 1


      I don't know, but I'm going to wait for the Windows 2000 Advanced Server Limited Edition GT, with the dual ported kernel and side pipes. Maybe they'll throw in a free floor mat, too. I want a red one with a white convertible top and... *drool*

      Uh... okay, Microsoft software is nothing to drool over until it lobotomizes you, I know.

  34. Re:Great by 536578476F64 · · Score: 1

    Dude, now that was a sweet trick!!!

  35. Re:NT 4 ran on digital alpha 64 bit cpu in 1996 by roca · · Score: 2

    NT drove the Alpha in 32-bit mode. That doesn't count.

  36. Windows is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Let's look at the numbers. Last month on MSN.support.com, there were 453,234,234 bug reports. During the same time period, there were zero bug reports for Linux on the same forum. It's obvious to anyone that can do simple troll-matic that Windows is dying.

    1. Re:Windows is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      There were also zero bug reports for CP/M-86.

      And let's not even start talking about the number of bug reports for Multics during that same time period.

  37. Re:NT 4 ran on digital alpha 64 bit cpu in 1996 by Scott+Wood · · Score: 1

    And it did it by treating the Alpha as a 32-bit
    CPU. Hardly a stunning achievement.

  38. Could it be... by sterno · · Score: 1

    That microsoft controls >90% of the market for operating systems? Could it be that they want to have a leg up on AMD? Gee, why would they do that?

    :)

    --
    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
    1. Re:Could it be... by Drazi100 · · Score: 1

      we are talkig server OS's Shiznit

  39. Connections.... by EvilJohn · · Score: 2

    The new versions of 64-bit XP are getting useeful again. The first rev's of 64bit XP, were really alpha quality stuff. However, in typical MS Fashion, each revision just gets better and better. Still, I think the need for this product is overstated. Why is that?

    Itanium is aimed squarely at the hideously overpriced Sun e450 and up lines of hardware. If you are Intel, you're not going to get hardcore Solaris shops moving to Windows Adv Server, and Windows DataCenter. This brings us to....

    Linux. For the record, I found TurboLinux was the company to produce a usable OS for Itanium, followed by Suse, and then Redhat, this has resulted in:

    Resources. At this point. Redhat's Distro seems to be the best on Itanium, giving them a leg up on the Real Prize, McKinley. However, porting apps to the Itanium hasn't been as easy as just treating it as yet another 64bit CPU.

    --

    Less Talk, More Beer.
  40. A few words about Windows XP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    I've been running Windows XP on my home PC for the last couple of weeks. It's astonishingly fast and stable. The interface is clean and intuitive. I did have a few problems with non-certified drivers for my SCSI card and USB modem, but those were fixed with a few registry hacks.
    (killer NG = microsoft.public.windowsxp.beta.help-and-support - you guys ROCK!)

    Win XP is not perfect, and not for everybody, but outpaces anything M$FT or its competitors have come up with to date. Throw 64-bit support into the mix - assuming it works ;) and you've got a real class-act. Do yourself a favor and at least give it a try and see if you don't like it, too.

  41. Limited Edition! by ahde · · Score: 1

    "limited edition" in Marketing Speak mean "fewer features" not "collector's item" -- though we may hope it becomes one. Think of an LE version of a car. Think Photoshop LE.

  42. Re:NT 4 ran on digital alpha 64 bit cpu in 1996 by coats · · Score: 3
    But ran in 32-bit mode. The same way VMS
    originally did.


    SGI was the first "mainstream" vendor to go
    with a 64-bit OS (and it still has 32-bit-mode
    and 64-bit-mode executables. DEC was next with
    OSF/1 (later renamed Digital UNIX), and eventually VMS. IBM and Sun came later -- about the same
    time as Linux (for Alpha and then for MIPS).


    IMNHO, there was a very good reason Intel made
    such an investment into the IA-64 port of Linux:
    so that they could be sure there would be an OS
    for it by the time it came on the market!


    MS is a latecomer for that (currently have Linux
    and two other UNIX ports that I know of with 64-bit support for IA-64).

    --
    "My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
  43. Itanium x86 emulation is mostly due to Intel by clem.dickey · · Score: 1

    Itanium to x86 backwards compatibility is handled mostly in hardware, so you can credit Intel more than Microsoft for that.

    Apple's support for 68K application under POWER must have been done in software, because POWER has no 68K emulation mode. (Although POWER and its predecessors have a long history of software emulation tools. In addition to the 68K, there are at least two POWER-based x86 emulators, and a POWER predecessor had a S/370 emulator.)

  44. Re:Excellent! by Guignol · · Score: 1

    Yes ! now the bugs will be 3d and rendered in real time !

  45. More memory == better web serving? by cybrthng · · Score: 2

    duh

  46. Finally by belochitski · · Score: 1

    Finally story about Microsoft is not accompanied by Gates/Borg icon.

  47. Doesn't the G4 use 128-bit processing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'm not an expert, but I was under the impression that the Power Mac G4 processors were 128-bit...

    http://www.apple.com/powermac/processor.html

    1. Re:Doesn't the G4 use 128-bit processing? by Kenyaman · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Velocity Engine can work on up to 128 bits at a time. What it's actually doing is SIMD work on chunks of data (4 chunks of 32-bit data). A lot like MMX instructions on Pentiums.

  48. Question... by Jim42688 · · Score: 1

    Will this work on the as yet unannouced 'enhanced' version of Itanium, McKinley? And what is Intel planning on calling McKinley?

  49. Re:64-bit Windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    Open Source has an advantage?

    Hell yes! Microsoft may have an army of mercenary programmers, but that's only in the States.

    The Open Source community is world-wide and outnumbers the microserfs by several orders of magnitude both in quantity and quality. Not to mention the morale. There's a whole world of a difference between a paid, "I'm doing it only for the big bucks" programmer and a dedicated Open Source warrior.

  50. Stability by LowellPorter · · Score: 1

    64 Bit WIndows:

    Stability Not Included

  51. real reason behind the new roll-out by Frizzled · · Score: 2

    microsoft wanted to be sure everyone could see this:

    http://homepage.mac.com/jcarusone/iMovieTheater2.h tml

    _f

  52. Category of this story... by NewbieSpaz · · Score: 1

    Maybe slightly Off-Topic BUT...

    I was surprised to not see a "Cyborg Bill" icon next to this M$ story. Just a thought.

    --
    ------
    Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
  53. In my day... by pogofish · · Score: 2, Funny

    we could crash Windows with only 16 bits. None of this namby-pamby 64 bit stuff. No sir. We used to say, "look at me, I'm crashing with a segmented memory model!" And you know what? It was good enough for us and we liked it.


    This new generation doesn't know how to crash Windows. No sir. They say, "oh, I couldn't possibly crash Windows without 64 bits, oh no." Wimps. All of 'em. Think bus bits grow on trees or something.

    --

    A man without a God is like a fish without a bicycle.
  54. 64 Bit computing just now becoming affordable. by cybrthng · · Score: 2

    Right now 64bit computing is simply for high end workstations and servers.

    Databases, for those of you who don't know are extreme memory hogs and 64 bit memory space is necessary for most large systems. NT or Linux this is a nice feature.

    Video editing/rendering - having this much memory is nice + floating point = fast!

    I know exxon will love them, geophysics isn't easy on 32 bit systems when utilizing holographic imagery and trying to produce maps of oil.

    Microsoft just has an easy interface for how things work. 64 bit in some form or fashion has been aroiund for a while in solaris, again mainly for a server os. Irix has had it, and again they're for the graphics/producing bit.

    SO NT will just fill it's niche.

    I have no idea what good linux on itanium is. can only get mysql to go so quick, pgsql doesn't support 64 bit as far as i know and not much for high end graphics. May be good for a rendering farm i guess?

    Atleast with SGI & NT/XP/2k you got lots of visualization, data manipulation, mapping and extrapolation type applications. Sun has its share.

    So i don't know why people dis it. You aren't going to run Office on the sucker and if you do who cares if its on par with a PIII, a PIII is still fast emulated or not.

    Its just nice to know 64 bits is around the corner. With memory and CPU prices falling through the roof its only a matter of time before consumers (gamers / coders and tech heads) upgrade to 64 bit systems.

    Be it linux, solaris, irix or not.

    1. Re:64 Bit computing just now becoming affordable. by Philbert+Desenex · · Score: 1

      Right now 64bit computing is simply for high end workstations and servers.


      Oh, rubbish. I've had a 64-bit CPU running Linux for several years.
      Under no circumstances could you consider my UDB a "high end" box of any sort. 64-bit computing is for whoever wants to fiddle with it.

    2. Re:64 Bit computing just now becoming affordable. by VB · · Score: 1

      True, you can play with 64-bit DEC Alpha in the home user space, but my EV5 is no screaming eagle at 300MHz. 64-Bit Intel chips will certainly bring this level of computing closer to home. Not that I'd run Windoze on it, but it would be nice to have a 64-Bit 1GHz x86 box around.

      --
      www.dedserius.com
      VB != VisualBasic
    3. Re:64 Bit computing just now becoming affordable. by VB · · Score: 2


      Just change the 192.168.1.2 to dedserius.com and you'll see the content. That machine is one of several hot-swaps on a private LAN. Sorry. I need to update the httpd.conf file, but it's the least likely swap to go and as an Alpha I don't spend much time keeping it current except for security.

      The Link has helped quite a few people get their Apache/PHP/FrontPage server on Linux implementations working so hope that helps you out.

      --
      www.dedserius.com
      VB != VisualBasic
  55. Re:Great by xZAQx · · Score: 1

    Cool trick. Uh. I think. I opened it with mozilla. I saw html. wtf? Just so i don't get modded down, i'll throw in my .02. Where is linux the kernel on this 64-bit bandwagon? Are we going to support it?

    --

    We dance to all the wrong songs.
    --Refused.
  56. Re:NO! IA64 provides WEAKER floating-point capabil by AndrewHowe · · Score: 2

    If it does FP in software, how the hell does an 800MHz Itanium achieve 711 SpecFP? Yes, some operations have to be broken down into simpler ones, but you're implying they're all emulated using integer operations... Bullshit!

  57. Re:FlOps assist serving web pages? by roca · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They don't. The problem for Intel is that Itanium's performance on everything except floating-point intensive applications is TERRIBLE. Itanium's SpecInt number is well below 400 in any configuration, which is slower than any other PC-class CPU available today. Itanium is much better on SpecFP, although it remains to be seen how good it is on REAL floating point applications.

    Itanium, and in fact the entire IA64 architecture, is a disaster. They bet the company on the wrong technology*. Intel will probably survive just because their marketing machine will persuade clueless corporate buyers to take the chip.

    * The numbers don't lie: for most applications, all the explicit parallelism, speculative operations, compiler engineering and transistor count in the world can't compensate for not having a real speculating, out-of-order core.

  58. sgi??? by snake_dad · · Score: 2
    Wasn't that the company that decided that in this virtual age there was no more need for reality?

    btw, it seems they are reconsidering their decision to close it down...

    --
    karma capped .sig seeking available Slashdot poster for long-term relationship.
  59. 64 bit bugs by rkt · · Score: 1


    Great, now we will have 64 bit bugs on 64 bit chip runnning 64 bit os.

    But what I'm interested to konw is whether color of BSOD change ?

  60. Twice as many users in the ditch by gelfling · · Score: 2

    It's a server. A big server. And hosting customers will DEMAND we move them from a large number of SMP boxes to one giant 64 bit server. Collapse a bunch of boxes down. OK so far so good. Reduce labor costs by reducing the number of servers though most of our metrics are based on the ratio of end users or accounts to boxes not the number of boxes. So lets say that Siebel rewrites their application for 64 bits and we run it. Let's say customer X now runs one giant instance of a DB on it or one GIANT authentication server/LDAP machine. All I've got to say is

    Holy single fucking point of failure Batman!

    An Intel box as big as a huge ass Sun or a RS/6k-S80 will cost at least as much to support and twice as much to harden for security.

    Not a critcism just a fact - we'll have to reshape all of our SLAs to reflect the unreliability inherent with consolidation.

    1. Re:Twice as many users in the ditch by cybrthng · · Score: 2

      Obviously you come from an X86 world where failure is normal.

      Unreliability isn't inherent with consolidation, its inherent with ineptness.

      If 100% uptime and reliability is what you need then having multiple servers doesn't server you anybetter. You would need duplicate datacenters, redundnat storage arrays, redundant power, redundant network connections, redundant routers, redundant switches and offsite support. When your talking about something like that, its cheaper to Buy an E10k maxes out that gets 99.99999 percent uptime and lease recovery center hardware & provisions from experts in the field like Sungard and such.

  61. you forgot MIPS by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

    I'm suprised no one has mentioned NT running on MIPS R4000 and R4400 cpus. Those are definately 64 bit. Although those boxes can't run IRIX because of the firmware.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:you forgot MIPS by hanwen · · Score: 1
      MIPS R4000 and R4400 cpus. Those are definately 64 bit.




      bzzt. Wrong. R4000 and R4400 are 32 bit. The R5k,
      R10k and R12k are 64 bit.

      --

      Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond

    2. Re:you forgot MIPS by javiercero · · Score: 1

      bzzzt. You should not correct people when you do not know what you are talking about.

      MIPS R4000 was the first 64bit commercial RISC processor, predating Alpha by the way. The whole MIPS-4/5/7/8/10/000 family is fully 64bit. The R-2/3/6/000 is 32bit like most of the MIPS32 embedded cores. Early R4000s had some bugs for certain 64 bit ops, and the R4(0,4,6)00/R5000 were used mostly in machines that used 32bit addressing. However the machines were fully capable of 64bit arithmetic.

      Incidentally, Windows NT was actually developed on MIPS machines, the Magnums. That were also based on a Microsoft design. It seems that at some point Microsoft also created their own Reference platforms.

  62. Re:Great by GrenDel+Fuego · · Score: 2

    the Linux kernel already runs on IA64. In the article it mentions that several distributions have been ported to the Itanium processor already.

    If you look on Redhat's FTP sites, you can see the IA64 subdirectories right next to the i386 ones.

  63. Re:NT 4 ran on digital alpha 64 bit cpu in 1996 by squeegee-me · · Score: 1

    If this is true, why did Digital have FX!32 for 32 bit software that made new DLL's optimised for the 64 bit chips? Besides, there was always the Alpha version for patches and other stuff from MS with NT 4.0. Try installing any software for NT on an Alpha box running NT 4.0 without having FX!32 on it. It won't let you typically, and if is does, it won't work. The only way I could see what roca said to be true is if MS made the O/S 32 bit and compiled it for a 64 bit environment the way Linux is done for the Alpha, (compile code with last 32 bits unused to eliminate recoding everything,) but then why is the Alpha software ususaly wup 32 bit versions? My only guess would be, O/S is 64 bit on 64 bit CPU and program is 64 bit as well. Seems silly to bottelneck the entire system with the O/S, makes sence to let the hardware be the limiting factor. New hardware = better performance, go figgure...

    --
    Who wants Pork Chops?
  64. BSOD should change to Purple. by simetra · · Score: 1

    I think they should change the BSOD to Purple. So it would be PSOD.

    --

    "Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
  65. Rendering/Raytracing by tcc · · Score: 2

    That's gonna ROCK when 64Bits hits mainstream (i.e. WindowsXP workstation 64bits maybe?) with dual/quad/octal slege/claw-hammer (or whatever that 64bits chip is names) ;)

    Future looks cool. As long as it's not too far :)

    --
    --- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
  66. Re:I've been waiting for a chance to share this on by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 2

    Easy. Windows Advanced XP Server is a 64 bit compilation of a 32 bit patch to a 16 bit GUI running on an 8 bit operating system designed for a 4 bit processor created by a 2 bit company who cannot stand 1 bit of competition. Although I will point out that the NT and XP lines were 32bit from the getgo. Windows 9x on the other hand, yes, it's a 32 bit layer over a 16 bit kernal. Except for ME, which does away with the dos bootstrap.

    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  67. M$ lost this battle years ago; here's why... by dcavanaugh · · Score: 1

    If 64-bit computing was so important, people would have bought Alpha processors. Introduced back in the early-1990s, the Alpha was largely ignored (outside of the high-end niche market).

    Digital had VMS and Unix for Alpha; M$ had NT. Evidently, the high-end customers discovered that Unix was the best OS for running databases and CPU-intensive apps on a 64-bit platform. Alpha/NT is history and VMS is probably next.

    Aside from cannibalizing the revenue stream from DEC VAX processors, the Alpha was not all that successful. Compaq bought Digital, then handed over Alpha to Intel.

    M$ has to release a 64-bit OS, just to avoid being identified as obsolescent technology. I predict that it will be quite a while before desktop users actually need 64-bit CPUs, although it would be useful on servers almost immediately. M$ will hold on to the 32-bit desktops, but they will lose the 64-bit server market because they lost it already. When the desktops truly need 64-bit power, the OS will not be M$. If you think M$ licensing is obnoxious now, just wait until they sense a captive 32-bit market that is ready to migrate to 64-bit. M$ will over-estimate the market value of their 64-bit software, and the customers will be screaming for alternatives.

    The Digital and M$ 64-bit concept of the 1990s is not all that different from the Intel and M$ concept of 2002. Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

    1. Re:M$ lost this battle years ago; here's why... by dcavanaugh · · Score: 1
      I can imagine Compaq meeting the Pentagon's definition of "support" for 20 years without porting to any new processors or adding any significant functionality. I'm not saying that is what will happen, but having "support" and attacting new customers are two different things. Does Oracle have a 20 year support commitment?

      If the VMS market was really worth $4B, I wonder why the Compaq deal was necessary. I was a big VMS fan, but it's been a long time since they had 6,000 mostly-VMS people at a DECUS convention.

      Considering how the Alpha was such a big technical breakthrough, it's truly amazing to see just how little DEC and Compaq were able to make of it. The Alpha should have been an Intel-killer from day one.

      Back to the main article: I see nothing at all "new" about M$ 64-bit "Advanced Server". As you say, the IA64 will be little more than an Alpha in disguise. If that's true, then the M$ product could be little more than NT/Alpha resurrected. It wouldn't be the first time the put a new face on an old product.

  68. Bah by Sloppy · · Score: 2

    4 gigabytes should be enough for anybody.

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    1. Re:Bah by SaDan · · Score: 1

      Apparently not if you run Windows XP... I know MS has some serious code bloat as of late, but sheesh!

  69. Obligatory Code Red and beaowoulf note... by NickisGod.com · · Score: 1

    The extra memory support and the floating-point capabilities increase the performance of Web hosting

    My what a big web server you have!
    The greater to request default.ida with, my dear.

    Oh, imagine a beowoulf cluster of these! Lot's of error logs!

  70. Re:NT 4 ran on digital alpha 64 bit cpu in 1996 by Tyrall · · Score: 1
    Who want's Pork Chops

    This quote from everyone's mate Bob says it all.

  71. Re:NT 4 ran on digital alpha 64 bit cpu in 1996 by roca · · Score: 2

    Alpha running in 32-bit mode is NOT the same as x86. FX32 translated x86 binaries into 32-bit Alpha binaries.

  72. And the benefit is... by src/code · · Score: 1

    you can now crash in record time! That's a plus, right?

    Cheers.

  73. Random Thoughts on IA-64 by EXTomar · · Score: 2

    This is definately newsworth to see a version of Windows ported to a 64 bit implementation. Nothing is as trivial as just porting the core/kernel. Just ask Sun how well Solaris 2.6 went.

    This leads to a couple of side question: How are the Linux and BSD IA-64 ports doing? I heard something about both of them awhile back. Both camps reported stuff is going well with kernels and compilers running but then the news just died away. Anything new an interesting to report? I would be interested in how much bloat going to a pure 64 bit kernel actually is.

    Didn't Intel claim that the Pentium is a 64 bit processor? Where are the 64 bit ports? *shock* Does this mean that Intel wasn't exactly truthful? :-)

    1. Re:Random Thoughts on IA-64 by platypus · · Score: 2

      How are the Linux and BSD IA-64 ports doing? I heard something about both of them awhile back. Both camps reported stuff is going well with kernels and compilers running but then the news just died away. Anything new an interesting to report? I would be interested in how much bloat going to a pure 64 bit kernel actually is

      as for linux, it's as far from vapor as it can be. buy an ia64, download any stable 2.4.x kernel and go on.

      See your local linux sources or
      http://bitmover.com:8888//home/ppc/linux_2_4/src /a rch/ia64?nav=index.html|src/.|src/arch

  74. Re:FlOps assist serving web pages? by pardonne · · Score: 1

    I admit the disparity between the integer (mediocre at best) and fp (top of the line) spec scores is disturbing. I am curious what you mean by REAL floating point operations?

    To me it seems like the much quoted photoshop and 3d rendering applications should be the strength of this cpu. "Real" for me is brute force multiplies on very large matrices of no particular structure
    with a good dose of control (if-then) loops in between.

    I would have assumed the new spec floating point to be more indicative of these types of operations than say quake 3. So mind saying a bit more and also further clarify your footnote?

  75. Limited Edition? by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 1

    That's hilarious, a Limited Edition of a piece of software that can be copied over and over and over for almost no cost at all.

    I thought limited edition was usually reserved for things where there was an actual scarcity of, such as cars and such.

    --
    Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
  76. Re:WinNT Alpha (AKA 64 bit Windows) by bored · · Score: 1

    They wern't 64bit clean on the alpha, from what I understand they wern't '64-bit' at all. Sort of like win32s on windows 3.1.

  77. In other news... by AA0 · · Score: 1

    the first service pack for it was released today, along with a security patch for that service pack.

  78. Intel ~= Apple by bored · · Score: 1

    Intel is like Apple in the 80's. Back then Apple was releasing new computers all time trying to replace the Apple ][. The only problem is all their profit was in the Apple ][ sector. Every time they got screwed with the mac they just released new Apple ][ hardware. Eventually it worked but by then apple had lost the PC market and a lot of their customers to the IBM clone storm. Intel is trying to repeat history, they keep comming up with new processors to replace the x86 first there was the i432 (was that the number?) then there was the i860/i960 and now the itanic. Their latest effort is probably doomed because of AMD's hammer line. Intel will have to release a P4 that runs so well that it puts AMD out of the running or they will have to release a 64-bit x86 processor to compete in the 'server' space with AMD.

  79. That's correct! by twitter · · Score: 1

    Linux has been on alpha and sparc for years. MS is playing megga retard catch up. Their OS is kind of like the Brady House Design.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  80. Re:FlOps assist serving web pages? by roca · · Score: 2

    SpecFP benchmarks are relatively small programs, and it's not clear whether compilation techniques used on such programs scale up to larger applications. On the other hand, you are right that the Itanium will probably perform very well on small regular FP kernels like one finds in Photoshop. I would worry, however, about applications that have irregular control flow and/or irregular memory access patterns. Some 3D rendering tasks fall into this category.

    The thing is that problems of the form "multiply matrices fast" are fairly easy to make fast. Vector units, reconfigurable units (including CPU-attached FPGAs and Stanford Imagine-style coprocessors), multiple CPU cores, lots of FP units, IRAM --- they all kick butt on these problems. Even with traditional designs, you'll notice that Athlon and Pentium 4 performance on these kinds of codes has been improving rapidly. Itanium's lead in these tasks can't be considered secure. And Amdahl's law suggests that terrible integer performance (very hard to fix having given up out-of-order execution) will strangle them even for FP-intensive applications, sooner or later.

  81. Windows XP and AMD Hammer Support by grendelkhan · · Score: 1

    According to an article on the Register, the WinXP SDK has a plugin for support of X86-64 processors.

    So not exactly ==Official MS Support, more like MS covering their bases in case the Hammer really takes off.

    --
    Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
  82. Clearing up some FUD by Strangely+Unbiased · · Score: 1

    I really like reading Slashdot, and I also learn a lot by reading (ie. the latest Mozilla version numbers and how to ignore ACs :). But every time Windows or Microsoft appears on the headlines, unheard of amounts of FUD comments get posted.
    I happen to be somewhat informed on the subject, so I'll let you know that:

    - Windows Limited Edition Server is called thus because it's a very temporary edition, some sort of a door to Windows.NET server (32 and 64-bit), which will appear sometime next year. Windows LE Server is mostly just a rushed-up 64-bit Win2000, to be bundled with Itaniums.

    - Windows NT 4.0 on the Alpha was NOT 64-bit.

    - Windows XP 64-bit betas have been kicking around since Windows XP Beta 1.

    - The Linux community (including me, a Linux apprentice), must find something else to says about Windows than 'It crashes all the friggin time' and stuff. Have you used Windows XP? I'm using it right now. If it'll ever crash (it hasn't until now), it will be in the same way Linux crashes : due to driver problems and stuff like that.It also runs great on my p250, and if you like your OS clean, you can remove the controversial features (Windows Messenger, EVEN IE 6). But we'll think of something, surely.

    --


    There is no such thing as 'world peace'.
  83. What's your point? by throx · · Score: 2

    So emulation slows down applications? Do applications compiled for Linux x86 even run on the IA64 version of Linux? Personally I though the whole backward compatibility thing was a good idea (within reason).

    --

    Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means

  84. More dll hell is on the way by Dracos · · Score: 1

    Just wait until 64 bit Windows come out... We'll have to deal with hundreds of ******64.dll files too.

  85. Re:FlOps assist serving web pages? by roca · · Score: 2

    Oh yeah, I probably don't need to point out that Intel is not marketing this chip as a Photoshop/games engine, which it might be good for. They're marketing it as a server chip, something it's spectacularly unsuited for.

    OK, it is 64-bit which is slightly useful for some servers. But by the time 64-bit becomes really useful for many people, AMD will have Hammer/x86-64. That is a much better processor design, 64-bit, easy to port to (just a 64-bit stretch of x86 with a few sensible goodies like more registers), and for extra points will run x86 code incredibly fast! The last point ensures it will ship in volume and hence massively undercut any other 64-bit chip on price.

  86. Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs by netinlet · · Score: 1

    Linux has been at 64-Bits for everybody ;-)

  87. Re:Not a great webserver by lseltzer · · Score: 1

    All these same things were said about the Pentium when it came out. All are also unimportant in a server.

  88. Obligatory Blue Screen Post by nick_davison · · Score: 2

    So, will we now have the two blue screens of death as they make room for dumping double the size variables?

    What happens when the two blue screens of death toggling mechanism breaks? Will we get the magenta screen of tormented afterlife?

    1. Re:Obligatory Blue Screen Post by jedwards · · Score: 1

      BSOD is text, so they could switch from 80x25 mode to 80x50 mode.

      But they haven't, not in the last BSOD on itanium I saw anyway.

  89. Re:WinNT Alpha (AKA 64 bit Windows) by alsta · · Score: 1

    Windows NT for Alpha was never 64 bit. Ever. It was 32 bit which was loaded through a special boot loader (ARC). Without the ARC boot loader there was no way one could boot NT. Later on came AlphaBIOS with the cheaper OEM boards. Same thing though, only a true 64 bit operating system could load through the SRM.

    Alex

    --
    Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
  90. Healthy Market by gregoryl · · Score: 1

    Great! Doesn't this make everyone happy? Now Windows can compete with linux in the 64 bit arena. It's good to see Microsoft shattering an 'evil' monopoly in this market and creating healthy competition. *duck*

  91. Re:NT 4 ran on digital alpha 64 bit cpu in 1996 by um...+Lucas · · Score: 1

    No, NT ran on Alpha's in 32-bit mode. FX32 was used to translate x86 code to Alpha code... That's all. Just because a two chips are 32 bit chips doesn't mean they're compatible. FX32 provided that bridge, but that's all.

  92. Rack space costs money. by yerricde · · Score: 1

    All these same [heat and form factor issues] were said about the Pentium when it came out. All are also unimportant in a server.

    When you colocate a rack of web servers, not only do you pay for the Internet connection, but you also pay rent for the square feet your gear occupies on the datacenter floor. The Itanium processor dissipates more heat than its competitors, requiring a large form factor to house fans. A large form factor for a given performance level doubles the rent, as you are now using two server racks instead of one.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  93. 64==2*32 by ellem · · Score: 2

    so will there be:
    2*.dll
    2*reboot
    2*hot fix
    2*service packs
    2*the bloat
    2*the suck
    ?

    --
    This .sig is fake but accurate.
  94. I wish... by Faust7 · · Score: 1

    "Making of" meaning source code? Heh heh... :)

  95. Get M$ OFF any other architecture but the x86. by crovira · · Score: 2

    KILL M$. Limit them to the x86. Amd then just wait.

    --
    MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
  96. Re:NT 4 ran on digital alpha 64 bit cpu in 1996 by chenwah · · Score: 1

    Nope, Microsoft developed a fully 64bit version of Windows NT to run on Alpha, but it was canned before being released.

    They actually demonstrated it running a 64bit port of MS SQL Server at one of their 'scalability days' where it blew the x86 intel boxes away. I think the advantage was mostly that the machine had an enormous amount of addressable RAM and the 64 WinNT running on Alpha could actually take full advantage of this as disk cache.

    Of course, this was back in the days when the Alpha was the fastest general purpose CPU on the planet, before DEC and then the Q let axp fall behind and MS dropped NT. At the time rumour had it that MS kept the alpha port and the 64 bit alpha port alive internally in preparation for "Merced"

    *sigh*
    First amiga bought it, then Alpha/NT, then Be - I just can't seem to jump onto a winning bandwagon. I hope I'm not jinxing FreeBSD by using it on all my machines...

  97. Thanks for proving my point by dcavanaugh · · Score: 1

    SGI stock quote (August 30, 2001): 47 cents . Are you buying? Perhaps you will make enough money in the stock market to buy an Itanium 3D PDA, with a 64-bit version of WinCE!

  98. What would be even better... by SaDan · · Score: 1

    ...would be if they'd deliver some of the women of pr0n to your door.

    THAT's what I'd call cervix... I mean, service!

  99. Re:More MCSE resumes to toss into the shredder! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

    My MCSE is what got me into the IT field as a pc helpdesk support tech. . Sure they wont teach you everything but I did learn the basics on what a network packet is and the 7 layers of the OSI model. I also use Linux as my main OS and know some c++/java programming so I am not a total mcse idiot but the certs are for getting your first IT job. They are not a replacement for experience or knowledge of course but they serve their purpose. They are also very common for system administrators or support professionals who are trained in other operating systems. If you have 3 years experience as a Jr. Novell Netware LAN admin and are applying for a NT admin job, then a MCSE certification can show an employer that you can use NT but you also have experience system administering as well. This can be very important in certain situations where you need to prove that you can work in a multi os environment.

    What I hate are those cheap so-called "MCSE boot camp" and other computer-training ads in the local newspapers. They promise you 70k a year in a sort of get rich quick scheme. Many of the applicants are suckers who are mainly poor immigrants who currently work at low wage jobs. At least where I am in New York City. They apply for these 6 week programs which only teach you how to answer questions on the mcse exams. No actual administration or support training is provided. Then afterwards they pass and expect to make 60K a year. A few of them actually made it into the IT world because they had a college degree as well. Its these mcse's are the ones who truly know nothing. Most of them who know dick still work at their low wage jobs and their mcse's did not help. :-)

    However I went to a professional business institute (paid by my employer of course) and was a pc junkie since middle school and knew my stuff. I learned most of my computer knowledge from experience but I thank my mcse training school for giving me a foot in the door. A mcse might not make a great admin or programmer but would probably be an ideal candidate for an entry level help desk job.

  100. Only... by BrookHarty · · Score: 1

    Only 1 thing matters.

    64bit Solitaire.

  101. I have a question... by Yuioup · · Score: 1

    Somebody out there please give me a basic lesson in computer science.

    Does a 64 bit processor running at 2 Ghz do more computations per second than a 32 bit processor running at the same speed? Does this hold true for Intel processors?

    Another thing, what about the Sun systems? Since they've released 64 bit processors a while ago, what's stopping them from making 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536, 131072, 262144, 524288, 1048576, 2097152, 4194304, 8388608, 16777216 bit processors?

    Please forgive me if I sound like an ignorant.

    Yuioup

  102. Re:greater fp perf == better web serving? by muffel · · Score: 1
    I think that the text means:
    (extra memory support, floating-point capabilities) increase the performance of (Web hosting, data warehousing and other applications)
    Yes, which means:
    (extra memory support AND floating-point capabilities) increase the performance of (Web hosting AND data warehousing AND other applications)

    The above poster simply pointed out that this is bull for the floating point part. And in fact it is bull for the memory part as well, unless you actually have more than 4GB RAM installed. 32-bits are perfectly fine to access all of your 256MB RAM. (Or am I missing something here?)

    --

    bla
  103. Hardware is different from software, no? by gelfling · · Score: 2

    Actually I come from the mainframe world, the AS/400 where 6 minutes of unplanned downtime a year are the exception. Lots of hardware is highly reliable and better yet coming down the pike with improved self monitoring.

    It's the software that's a problem. A kernel panic on one of 12 NT servers is less of a problem than a kernel panic on 1 of 1 NT servers. A problematic security hole caused by yet another ubiquitous IIS or Active Server glitch is more of a problem from a change control perspective if all your users are on box. A big box that still uses NetBIOS over TCP and blasts a ton a crud thorough port 139 is probably easier to manage from a firewall perspective if what you want is to filter traffic from-to by address but attempting to mount a network IDS on the box will present correlation engine problems in the shear volume of false positives that an NT based solution will generate.

    And so on.