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Intel Gets PA-RISC Engineers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the gathering-them-all dept.

Doctor_D writes "Well it looks like Intel has done it again. They have absorbed more processor engineers, this time from HP. Alpha is gone, PA-RISC is going, what's going to be left? MIPS? SPARC? AMD? Crusoe? "

7 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Power4/PowerPC by bandix · · Score: 2, Interesting

    PA-RISC needed to die. It sucked. It's a damn shame Alpha's going away, but that's all water under the bridge. The important thing is that IBM is still quite alive and have produced a processor which is currently giving Intel one helluva run for their money. The Power4 chip's characteristics are nothing short of incredible. For more info check out this page at IBM Research.

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    Brandon D. Valentine
    1. Re:Power4/PowerPC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      "PA-RISC needed to die. It sucked."

      Considering that this move was pre-announced in *1994* by Intel and HP, is anyone really shocked?

      (Well you might be shocked at how bad Itanium sucks, but oh well....)

    2. Re:Power4/PowerPC by Moray_Reef · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I can say for sure that an HP B2000 (HP9000/785)with a 400MHz PA-RISC (1.5MB cache 512MB RAM) CPU runing either HP-UX 10.20 or 11.0 smokes an (admittedly sucky) Sun Ultra-5 400MHz (512K cache -so the whole test is iffy anyway- 512MB RAM) workstation running Oracle 8.1.5/6 on S(l)olaris 7 or 8. If I had my choice I would go for an HP workstation over a Sun unit anyday, BUT I can buy about 8 500MHz SunBlade-100 workstations for the price of one B2000... Don't get me wrong the HP is server class hardware in that workstation, a better product in every way, but OMFG do you pay for it. The Suns are 'commodity' class hardware but great bang for the buck if you need a mature 64bit platform and O/S.

      It will be a shame to see it go, but maybe I can get some of those HP workstations cheap soon.... 8-)

      The following is just a sig.

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      If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
    3. Re:Power4/PowerPC by javiercero · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "This is not true, first was Acorn with its ARM..." Nope. IBM's ROMP predates them all, it was the first commercial RISC implementation. Appeared on the RT commercially but it was in production internally in IBM in the early 80's (descendant of the 801 research chip). MIPS had working silicon in 84 but it was still part of Stanford. And the Fairchild Clipper also came on the same year as ARM. All these chips came out in 86 anyways... so besides few weeks/months all could be considered contemporary. PA-RISC itself has a very large instruction set, that is because it is a descendant of other HP processor line, the FOCUS (world's 1st 32bit microprocessor) which was CISC.

  2. Carly on "The HP Way" by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Fiorina, who's heard such complaints before, calls the HP Way ``a wonderfully convenient and evocative and emotive umbrella to throw all kinds of complaints under.'' In actuality, she says, the philosophy was underpinned by the commitment of HP's founders to doing what was best for the company.

    ``Dave Packard would say, `The most important thing is for a company to be profitable, period,' '' Fiorina says. ``He also was fond of saying, `This is not a democracy.' ''

    It looks like Carly is turning out to be just another golden-parachuter. With an approach like that towards managing HP, she wants to turn it into a glorified Dell. Unfortunately for her, the Dell we already have is pretty darn good and commodifying HP's business is not doing what is best for the company. Don't be surprised to see her making that golden sky-dive in a year or two, while HP's share price continues to make that bright-red sky-dive we've seen for the last year or so...

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    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  3. Linux jobs, HP-Intel partnership by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Not my official HP hat on, folks. I'm making this posting on my own, not speaking for the company.

    Before you protest too much: They are adding Linux positions, and the money has to come from somewhere.

    HP has been transitioning its processor operation to Intel for years. HP partnered with Intel to develop the IA-64 architecture. Did anyone think that PA-RISC would continue in parallel to that forever?

    The world has some very serious single-source issues regarding high-end silicon in general. The fabrication lines have become so incredibly expensive as chips become more dense that most companies have given up on new CPU fab construction. And you can't make new chips with those old FABs. Perhaps we'll be lucky and there will be a revolution in microfabrication technology, but I've not heard of one on the horizon.

    Another place where this hurts us is in high-end graphics, where we are down to two manufacturers.

    I'd like to see more work on Open Sourced processor designs that run in field-programmable logic. This is a place where we can innovate without the expense of a fab, and then when we have good ideas that get proven, people can fab them.

    Thanks

    Bruce

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    Bruce Perens.
  4. Where does HP fit now? by megaduck · · Score: 3, Interesting

    HP is getting out of the chip business. HP is getting out of the OS business. They are acquiring Compaq, who is also leaving the OS and chip businesses.

    My question is this: What now differentiates HewPaq from say, Dell? The only thing I can think of is HP's printer business, but I don't think that alone would be enough to keep them afloat. I'm genuinely curious. What is HP doing to keep themselves relevant?

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    This .sig for rent.