Slashdot Mirror
Compaq: Alpha is Better Than IA-64
Compaq released a document (it's in PDF format) that states that their Alpha is better then IA-64 (Intel next generation Itanium Processor). The document compares Alpha (and future generations of Alpha) against the IA-64 (I hate this "Itanium" name - where do they get these names anyway?). Certainly worth a read. What do you think, folks?
alpha has been 64-bit for a while ... Itanium only now .. Hello Unix vs Microsoft ..
Alpha: tru64 or Linux. As much as I love *NIX, eliminating themselves from most of the market share, they can have the best chip ever imagined, but Intel will still whip their butts. Can we say Macintosh?!?!
I think the real advantage is when operating systems become 64 bit, windows probably own't be for a long while, but is linux going to be 64 bit when it is ready on x86 architectures?
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Unfortunately it doesn't matter. The sheep will keep buying Wintel PCs. In this industry "good enough" has always been, well, good enough.
Just goes to show what bad marketing can do. Tell the average Joe about the Alpha and he's like "Alpha what?" And, yeah, I want one too. :)
I am not an expert in CPUs and I haven't read a basic CPU architecture schematic since the original Pentium came out. Therefore I cannot judge the merits of this document.
I would like to point out that this document is from Compaq, so we must suspect that the document was written with a Pro-Alpha slant to begin with. Its like Intel coming out with a paper debating the merits of the Pentium III vs. the Athlon Processor.
Manung
The alpha processors are not changing their niche in the computer market. They are ripping fast - and Dec first and now Compaq plays to the supercomputing crowd. The XP series motherboards and 21264 chips simply rip any other motherboard/chipset out there.
However, they cost too much for anyone except a supercomputing hound. If Compaq would drop Dec's insanely idiotic OS and component licensing scheme and aid linux on alphas, they might stand a chance of making a LOT of money selling hardware. As is, people buy ten times more alphas one chip generation late and run linux instead of OSF.
Anyone interested should see the linux alpha compilers available. cc is a small improvement, and ForTran is a LARGE improvement.
http://www.unix.digital.com/linux/software.htm
But still, Itanium will come out, and an Itanium box will offer slightly less than half the floating point speed, and it will cost about 1/4th of the fast alpha box from Compaq. And the alpha motherboards will still make it tough to support third party peripherals. And Itanium will dominate the 64 bit market. And Alpha will own the supercomputing market.
Everything I've read so far, even withstanding Compaq's propaganda, indicates that the Alpha will be
faster
cheaper
*and* more powerful than Merced.
Not to mention that the Alpha, anyways, is proven technology.
The PDF format is hardly Compaq's. If anything, it's Adobe's. Plus, the poster confused "than" with "then", /again/. :P
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
It's going to be tough for Digital to edge into Intel's market, mainly because nearly all consumers have been brainwashed to look for the "Intel Inside" Logo.
"Excuse me sir, is this an Itanium?"
"No, Ma'am. This is an Alpha processor by Digital corporation."
"Well Shit, I've never heard of THEM. Where are your Itanium machines?"
Not only that, but Alphas have never really been geared toward the general consumer. Most have been high-end server machines. Also, as far as I know, Alpha won't run x86 code because it uses a different architecture. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
"Alpha, huh?
"No Ma'am, this machine runs a Unix variant, and has a different architecture than Intel processors."
"Well Shit, I NEED those programs. Where are your Itanium machines?"
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
The best feature of the Alpha is that they are available. Or are they?
I've wanted an Alpha for a while now because (for various geeky reasons: fun, supposed speed, fun, assembly programming, and fun) but I've never been able to find a reasonably priced machine (even for auction) OR good instructions on how to build them.
If Compaq were smart (note the use of a counterfactual conditional) they'd hype Linux on Alpha like all get out. What better way to screw MS than to give geeks hardware that Windows can't touch (anymore)?
But does Compaq want to screw MS? If they're smart they do: Compaq produces an ostensibly competing OS.
---
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
The coolest thing about the paper is the details, such as they are, about the EV8. It's essentially four CPUs slammed together on the same chip talking to one another, and if the OS supports it you get four separate threads running at once.
This has the potential, along with a big cache, to really boost the performance of a box, as well as drop the price per bang down. SMP circuitry's not cheap or simple, and definitely non-trivial to design. But with the EV8, it's all been done for you...
So Alpha is fast and well designed and beats the shit out of x86 and IA64... What else is new? It's also irrelevant to a large majority of computing enthusiasts because the systems are really really expensive relative to the x86 boxes we can all go out and buy at Comp-U-Planet.
I know a lot of people who would absolutely adore having an Alpha box, but they're just so expensive... We have a variety of free high-quality OSes working on Alpha and we've got millions of people who are now re/entering the land of *nix. Put 1 and 1 together and you get a large potential market for low-end, moderate-cost alpha boxes... My question is, where can we find them and what's holding up the market from bringing them to us at a sane price? Are we not looking hard enough or are they not there?
-troll taker
truly, is s/w being written because the OS is popular, or is the OS popular because the s/w is being written?
I am, therefore you think.
I'm also not an OS (or arch) expert, BUT I think another advantage is data bus (and register) size. You've already mentioned the address bus with your 4GB physical RAM, but you've neglected to mention that you can get (and use) a full 64 bit word from that address with a 64 bit OS.
---
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Alphas certainly deserve the market for high-end 64bit PCs, as it is a proven architecture that has been around since 1991 (or so). Even though the Merced is brand new, Intel will market it enough to dominate. I bet the Merced will be even more expensive than the Alpha! (Secret hope: there will be some hideous bug in Merced - like the original P5 and Chipzilla will fall flat on its face!)
To begin with, this is only the first version of the Itanium line of chips. For all we know, by the time the chip ships in SOHO computers, things will change. Also, the IA64 has one major advantage over the Alpha, the IA64 can run 32 bit programs (albeit at a considerable performance hit). For the first few years of the new chips, 32 bit software is what allot of people will use, so most computer manufacturers will only sell the IA64... Look, I am not anti-alpha, nor anti anyone else, I like competition, it lowers prices, but a realist must take all such releases with a grain of salt (Compaq is pushing its AMD line over its Intel line of machines, maybe they are trying to help AMD out, who knows). Either way, I look forward to owning a 64 bit computer someday.
Why is it that people always hear what I say, and not what I mean?
How do they come up with these processor names, you ask? An astute question, one that requires some of Intel and AMD's most closely-kept company secrets. A friend of mine who used to work for Intel managed to smuggle the following Perl script out, shortly before he was fired. Here it is:
./pnames.pl ./pnames.pl ./pnames.pl ./pnames.pl ./pnames.pl ./pnames-pl
#!/bin/perl
# Copyright (C) 1997 Intel Corporation
# This is a proprietary Intel perl script.
@prefix = ( "Pent", "It", "Max", "Ath", "Cort", "Trit" );
@suffix = ( "ium", "alon", "ex", "anium", "oricon", "agon",
"on", "eres", "obos", "ymede", "itan", "erion" );
@tag = ( "II", "III", "IV", "Pro", "MMX", "Deluxe" );
srand;
printf( "%s%s %s\n", $prefix[rand 6], $suffix[rand 12], $tag[rand 6] );
So if we run this script, we can see where the names come from:
sg1 237%
Cortium II
sg1 238%
Pentalon IV
sg1 239%
Penteres III
sg1 240%
Athalon Pro
sg1 241%
Pentitan II
sg1 242%
Maxymede MMX
Please show discretion when you refer this script to others. It is, after all, an Intel proprietary secret and should therefore only be shared with others on a "need-to-know" basis.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
While I don't know enough about chip design (and also don't really care) to judge the chips on their technical merits, the bottom line seems to be that it doesn't matter how good a chip you make if you can't ship/sell it in decent volumes. We all know that the early Intel chips were pretty much garbage, yet Intel today is the king of the chip world. Why? Because most (99+%) of the machines sold feature intel compatible chips.
As long as you can't go to an average computer store and pick up a PPC, Alpha or Sparc chip and build your own computer from it, the general population will not even know they exist. Don't get me wrong: I would like it if all of a sudden the availability of these chips were equal to the Intel chips, but that's just not the reality of the marketplace. With the switch to the 64-bit architecture there may be an opening in the market which will allow these chips to become a more available product in the eyes of the average consumer. But as long as the Intel/MS duopoly (which is showing signs of fracturing) is as dominant as it is now, that's just not going to happen.
I'll run an alpha KDE, sure. That's one thing. But trust your system to an alpha cpu?? I'll get one maybe after a few months of at least going Beta.
;)
Oh,
There are many organizations that still use VMS for their continuous computing appliations. Alpha is idea for that application.
Ok, I'll try.
:-)
Macin... Linux.
Ma... Linux
Linux.
Linux.
Nope, it just doesn't seem to come out.
(the irony is I'm posting this from a mac)
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
It's the format for Word users who don't want to learn how to do HTML! Weenies.
Not able to find them at auction? *blink, blink* I have an alpha 500 sitting in a friend's basement that we went halfsies on 3 weeks ago and got for ~$850(US) on ubid. *shrugs* (sorry, this was offtopic, but the nice toys are available, or at least were before xmas ;-)
Rafe
V^^^^V
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
For a while I was worried that when Compaq took over DEC they would just bury Alpha and forget about it.
It's nice to see them pushing it a little more heavily...I always thought DEC did a terrible job of marketing Alpha....
Looks like Compaq has a chip on its shoulder...
Ok. They're fast and lagging one generation, they are said to be affordable. Is it a recommended choice for someone only running linux? I mean, do I get twice the performance for the same overall price?
greetings,
Reinout
Reinout van Rees
I firmly want to believe that the Alpha is a better processor, but thinking so because of the contents of a marketing release from a manufacturer is prolly not the greatest of ideas.
:)
Sure, the Alpha has cool technology, and it always has, but "better" also include price-performance, something which Intel has historically been better-than-average at (until the advent of AMD, and in comparison to Motorolla/Sun/HP). There are signs that the Alpha may actually become affordable in the near future, and no one knows what Intel will do with pricing.
On a side note, there is a pretty interesting article on news.com about the past year's troubles for Compaq.. It blames most of the issues on executive malfeasanace.
Go Alpha!
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
I have no idea where they came up with itanium, but they got pentium from latin (the root word means fifth). Now, we all know why the pentium pro was called the pentium pro, because they din't want to call it sextium
(smile) overhead tells the story and (imo) it will
take 5 years to eliminate 16/32 from ia64.
There's no way Compaq is going to release a comparison that doesn't make the Alpha look stunning and the IA64 like a 386SX if they can't help it.
There's no way anyone can say Alpha is better than IA64 without some solid benchmarking, and this PDF file only quotes benchmark data for the Pentium and PentiumPro, not the IA64.
Until a Third Party with No Vested Interests (aka TPwNVI[tm]) can independently compare Alpha with IA64 (with widely recognized benchmarks and other objective tests), take anything you hear from Compaq and Intel with a grain of salt.
_______
computers://use.urls. People use Networds.
Buy a used Sun UltraSparc 1/170 or better system... They're 64-bit, and can be had for fairly cheap these days.
The Alpha 21264's SPECint95 and SPECfp95 results _now_ are higher than the projected results for the as yet unreleased IA-64 processor. Unfortunately, the Alpha's suffered from poor marketing and and business decisions.
True, Alpha and Merced will be the things that every one wants, but it is just not practical. Also, Im not a big linux user, but isnt the best practical chip for linux right now a PPC or G3/G4???
Lets remember that Crusoe will be announced in about 3 weeks.
my $2.e-2
Hey guys do you want alot more people to start using Linux on Alphas? Start doing some software porting!!! You guys claim you support RHL for the DS10 Webbrick? Start making some Alpha RPMs and posting them on rpmfind.net or some Compaq site! It's really annoying not being able to use Netscape, StarOffice, ssh, MySQL, Oracle, or the countless other number of apps and services available on the x86 side. And please make tar/gz'ed binaries available if not RPMs.
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
MS didn't kill NT on Alpha, Compaq did. Turns out nobody wanted to run a 32bit OS on 64 bit hardware. :)
--GnrcMan--
See subject
I'm going to start putting together a new linux box sometime in the next year, and am still open to the choice Intel vs Alpha. I want the box to be really spanking fast, of course, and it sounds like alpha is *still* going to be outperforming Intel even with the Merced (which is disappointing in a way, because I thought the whole point was that Intel were finally going to have a chip that could compete with alpha on grunt speed). But what worries me is: you can only buy Quake 3 in binary form, and I think I saw somewhere on the quake website that they're *only* releasing it for Intel. Plea: *please* release Quake3 for Alpha ...!
-------------
ans =
NaN
If they want some exposure or to compete for the desktop market (Which is where the money is) they need to slash the price on the chips and sell them near cost. Sure they take a hit for R&D but the volume of sales should go up. If they don't have a good strong presence by the time IA64 hits, they may as well close up their doors and go home.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That darned closed-source programming gets people into bad habits..
/bin/perl -w
First of all with current versions of Perl the srand call is not needed.
Secondly I would recommend using qw() because it is more legible for lists.
Thirdly a little information hiding works well. There is no need to have to synchronize the length of the list with the argument to rand.
And -w is always worthwhile
So rewritten we get
#!
@prefix = qw(Pent It Max Ath Cort Trit);
@suffix = qw(ium alon ex anium oricon agon on eres obos ymede itan erion);
@tag = qw(II III IV Pro MMS Deluxe);
printf ("%s%s %s\n", &rand_elt(@prefix), &rand_elt(@suffix), &rand_elt(@tag));
sub rand_elt {
return $_[rand(scalar @_)];
}
Not that it matters in this case, but good habits are good habits...
:-P
Cheers,
Ben
PS To get the code to look like code use the TT tag, and to get indents use . Warning, IE may mess up the indented space on a cut-and-paste...
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
You could also say it's the "pretty" version of postscript...
Don't forget that Intel actually manufactures some AXP CPU's! Digital sold their Alpha Fab plants. I think API makes them as well as Samsung(?) and Intel.
--GnrcMan--
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I know it's asking a lot, but i'd really like to see some tried and true benchmarks of both chips...
Not some "how fast they serve web pages" or how fast compiling a new kernel would run.
I want to see some mad scientist go in and dissect each chip and tell me that the Alpha can do X better, while the Merced (I refuse to use the I word) can do Y better...
I really don't trust a release from an obviously biased party. Of course, M$ would tout that NT outperforms Linux as a Webserver... And of course Compaq would do the same for their Alpha's.
Like it's been said previously, the Compaq corporate PR people can leave out the bad stuff if they want.
What we need is the Ted Nugent of Hardware Benchmarks...
"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair... Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy was he?"
Where can you find these things for sale cheaply? Old alphas, sparcs, ultrasparcs etc .. anyone got any links and/or recommendations? .. I'm in the USA btw.
--
Delphis
While I'm not a programmer and therefore can't really contribute much to the cause, I still wonder why there has been no effort to make an opensource emulator... x86 to Alpha... maybe x86 to SPARC... x86 to PowerPC.... and two way, as well... though i suspect the main use would be to run x86 software on other platforms... Wouldn't that be great? And why is there no effort that I can find?
Apologies for potential off-topic.
:)
Let's port this to all other languages like LISP et al.
I will do the easy one and port it to C.
// Copyright (C) 1997 Intel Corporation
// This is a proprietary Intel C program.
static const char * prefix [ ] =
{ "Pent", "It", "Max", "Ath", "Cort", "Trit" };
static const char * suffix [ ] =
{ "ium", "alon", "ex", "anium", "oricon", "agon", "on", "eres", obos", "ymede", "itan", "erion" };
static const char * tag [ ] =
{ "II", "III", "IV", "Pro", "MMX", "Deluxe" };
int
main ( void )
{
srand ( 0 );
printf ( "%s%s %s\n",
prefix [ rand ( ) % ( sizeof ( prefix ) / sizeof ( prefix [ 0 ] ) ],
suffix [ rand ( ) % ( sizeof ( suffix ) / sizeof ( suffix [ 0 ] ) ],
tag [ rand ( ) % ( sizeof ( tag ) / sizeof ( tag [ 0 ] ) ] );
return 0;
}
P.S. Yeah, I know, I should write a perl to C printer, but then the post would be too long.
For I am not master coder yet who can code a super short compressed one-line self-compiling compiler to fit as a post.
Any challenger care to respond with one?
P.P.S. Back to doing some real coding.
Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer
3D Realms/Apogee
Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer
I'm convinced that the IA64 has many neat features, and I have no doubt that Intel can answer many of these criticisms with their own analysis.
That being said, the SMT idea is really neat.
There are low-cost Alpha boxes out there: the Multia. DEC sold these as "Universal Desktop Boxes" running Linux in the mid-90's. Unfortunately, they discontinued them in 1995. You can still occasionally find them for sale on the web, though. I bought one on onsale.com last year, and I won (most of) another one in a raffle from thelinuxstore.com earlier this month. They have an appealingly compact "pizza-box" desktop tower design that looks like a fat closed laptop with integral ide, video, and sound support. They also use laptop parts (PC and PCI-bus cards), making them easy to customize. Unfortunately, the Multia CPUs are quite slow by today's standards - perhaps roughly equivalent to a Pentium 100 (just a guess) for the most common version with a "low-cost" 166MHz 21066 Alpha CPU.
You can find more info by searching the web; www.viking.org/lca.html is also a good starting-point.
If only COMPAQ would come out with an updated version with a faster CPU...
- Tim
ya know what, i puled out my first year latin book, and check up, i was wrong in the first place, but for the second processor (pentium pro), i techincly an right.
Both The cardnal and hte Ordinal Number's root word is sex for six.
And since this is like the name of something, it would be a Ordinal, it would be sextus, to bad sextus is indeclinable.
BTW, hex is used in science (is it from greek?), so thats probaly where pent came from.
Fifth in latin is Quintus.
Sixth in latin is sextus
btw, for you AC who called me Yuore ignurant.
you can ii ad hade.
Yummy quadwords.
:)
This sounds like some potential for floating point to integer optimization hacks, depending on the integer/register instructions.
Fun. Fun. Yummy.
Even yummier super large register files, such that those useless register pragmas actually work in compilers.
Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer
3D Realms/Apogee
Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer
Uhhm...try this:
:)
Main Entry: order of magnitude
Date: 1875
: a range of magnitude extending from some value to ten times that value
and
Main Entry: magnitude
Pronunciation: 'mag-n&-"tüd, -"tyüd
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin magnitudo, from magnus
Date: 15th century
1 a : great size or extent b (1) : spatial quality : SIZE (2) : QUANTITY, NUMBER
2 : the importance, quality, or caliber of something
3 : a number representing the intrinsic or apparent brightness of a celestial body on a logarithmic scale in which an increase of one unit corresponds to a reduction in the brightness of light by a factor of 2.512
4 : a numerical quantitative measure expressed usually as a multiple of a standard unit
Seems like they have an inkling.
--GnrcMan--
I'm sure everyone noticed the portion of the doc that mentioned that proper use of the IA64 platform could inflate the size of binaries by almost 33%
33% ??
I guess Intel really is a 'Microsoft Strategic Partner! They're helping them with code bloat!!
.sig: Now legally binding!
Check out EBay(Computers - Unix category).
uh, it's gramm a r.
I typically declare an ARRAY_SIZE function-like macro in my project header to avoid some of the code duplication you've got above.
:-) But for applications where good pseudorandom numbers are needed, it's best to use random() or some other facility (but there again, you break strict ISO C portability since random() is not a standard library function.)
#define ARRAY_SIZE(x) ( sizeof( x ) / sizeof( x[0] ) )
This makes it less awkward to use (and more intuitive for somebody reading your code who might be a bit C-handicapped and doesn't understand what you're trying to do.)
Oh, and why srand( 0 );? Why not use the current timestamp as a seed, or better yet, some manipulation of the current timestamp and the current process ID? (This of course, requires you to stray from strictly-portable C code, because it assumes you're on a platform that has process IDs and has integral time_t values.)
Finally, rand() and srand() are typically horribly inadequate in C (and presumably, in Perl as well.) Now obviously, for this joke example, it doesn't really matter.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
While a few of the points they are making about the IA-64 architecture are valid, there is a significant amount of fluff and propaganda in this piece. There are many mentions of 'insignificant performance gain' or 'does not justify the cost' which from my research seem unwarranted.
The thing to remember is that Intel is not stupid. They think they can make this work, and they are one of the few companies with enough resources to make it work. I wouldn't bet outright on intel, but I do think they know what they are doing and wont end up with a useless product.
-dennis towne
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
Alpha suffers from what I call the "Apple problem" - it's expensive, not easily available, and it's a lock-in to a single supplier.
To make it competitive, Compaq should drop the price and license any patents in a way that allows binary-compatible clones (without necessarily releasing patents on how to implement the chip). This allows a group of cheapskate cloners to provide a low-speed compatible entry path, while Compaq continues to trade on speed.
FWIW, I usually use order of magnitude to mean a factor of ten give or take.
The authors make a big stink about the fact that IA64, by it's VLIW (or EPIC) nature, cannot dynamically reschedule instructions. Here's the three main points against IA64 in the paper:
Branch Prediction
The Compaq slant
Since all the scheduling is done at compile time, IA64 has (supposedly) no way to accurately predict which instructions to fetch during branches. As stated in the paper, compilers can't do a good job of this prediction, and in most processors special counters are used to keep track of how often branches go a certain way, to make them fetch the (hopefully) correct instructions the next time around.
How IA64 handles this
VLIW processors don't do branch prediciton, because they essentially process both branches simultaneously, and drop the results from whichever branch doesn't get executed. Perhaps I'm missing something in the author's argument, but it seems like he forgot this.
Register Renaming
The compaq slant
The author states that the large number of registers in IA64 would be better served with an out-of-order (dynamic reschduling) processor, but presents no arguments as to why this might be true.
The IA64 side
Frankly, this looks to me like a non-issue. I can't even see why the author brought it up. I would personally think that compile-time scheduling would have a much better shot at using the large number of registers effectively, since it can look further ahead in the instruction stream.
Dynamic scheduling + memory latency
The compaq slant
When a cache miss occurs, dynamically scheduling processors can simply keep feeding unrelated instructions through unused functional units (FU's) while those long LOADs and STOREs are taking place. IA64, by its very nature, cannot do this, since all the instructions in a particular "packet" must feed through simultaneously. Therefore, the processor stalls for however long it takes to go to memory.
How does IA64 fix this?
This is a sticky issue. Depending upon the particular program, cache size and structure, and various other factors, this may or may not come up. What the author does is present a worst-case scenario, and prove (rightly) that IA64 doesn't handle it as well. There is a good chance that this would be caught at compile time, and the compiler would change the cache structure to compensate. If not, dynamic recompilation can be performed, using cache miss information to restructure the code.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Personally, I feel that things could go either way. VLIW gives you a big performance boost on the front end, with (ideally) a lower cycle time, more FU's and a larger register space. How IA64 will match up, no one really knows yet.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm waiting for my Transmeta CPU! Just hope they don't name it something stupid like Javalon with GGX technology.
Be carefull, this is a joke.
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
I can't help get the feeling that the chip get it's name from the Curator of the Planitarium in South Park.
"welcome to the Plani-arium"
Vs
"Our new chip will be called: I-anium!"
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
Lessee, my buddy here tells me the prototype alpha came in around '90...and it's been 64 bit from the git-go. We're talking about a not-yet-release, brand new chip, vs. one that's been in production for nearly ten years.
For that matter, the InfoMagic CD that I picked up in '96 or '97 had a version of linux for the Alpha, and there's a current version, as far as I know...*and* Compaq has dropped all support of NT on Alphas (there was a slashdot item on that, months ago), and has announced support for linux.
Oh, yeh, and I b'lieve that you can get Alpha processor-based systems for the price of Xeons, even from sytem retailers *other* than Compaq.
Hell, where I work, the city's been running on Alphas since '95 or '96...and the new generation system that we've just been testing...well, when I reconfigure DEC UNIX, and it's about to rebuild the kernel, it gives a message that it may take 15 minutes...and then takes (I timed this) a minute and a half! (Old message, obviously)
So, tell me again, why is it that Merced is "new and revolutionary"?
mark
It's good to see Compaq finally starting some pro Alpha marketing!! Keep it coming!!!
It's like these processors used in macs (I forget what they are called). By most standards they are faster than x86 series processors yet relativly few people buy macs because there are other factors that are more important.
My orignal post was too short to make my point properly which is that it's good that intel are bringing out new great processors and it's great that there are others just as good or better so we can decide on more appropriate things than raw processor speed.
Sig is taking a break!
You can find inexpensive Alphas. www.dcginc.com sells complete Alpha systems for $1800-$5500 and bare bone systems for much less. Alphas CAN run 32 bit code under NT using the FX32! Emulator.
32 bit x86 code no less... Also, there is support for 32 bit x86 Linux binaries available (in Linux of course.) How well it actually works is best left for someone else to answer. I'm suprised that so many people thought there was no x86 emulation available.
Of course, the emulation isn't quite as important under Linux as it is under Windows since most software for Linux is open source and able to be compiled natively. Note that I am NOT implying that it's always as easy as simply recompiling the source...
BTW, doesn't seem like a great idea to go with an Alpha/NT combo these days anyway. Microsoft ceased development of NT5/Win2k/whatever for the Alpha. Presumably because they need to focus on rigging it to work with the IA64 first. I wonder if Windows for the IA64 will end up being enough 64 bit code to call it a 64 bit OS and as much of the old 32 bit code as they can get away running under emulation. Any guesses?
numb
What makes them sheep is why they "choose" and OS, application, or computer. They do what everybody else does. In almost all cases it has nothing to do with "bang for the buck", or what application is best. If that were true, MS would have went bust years ago. For example, why do MS IE users outnumber Netscape users? Because IE is better ? Nope (allthough it is IMO), because it's what came configured on there PC when they bought it at CompUSA. This, near absolute, control that MS has gives them the resources to outlast everyone else and eventually produce decent products. People as a whole are sheep, and it follows that they buy computers, OSs, and applications, etc. like sheep (if sheep bought computers of course).
Just wait for Odium and Itrogen!
fish and pipes
...is available here
--GnrcMan--
Not available?
Sure, the chips are expensive, but what Alpha processors need is marketing not necessarily pricing.
And 99% of computers are shipping with Intel processors? Guess you missed AMD having the majority of computer sales a couple months ago (at over 40%) or the iMac's surprising success.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
This white paper is interesting, if non-objective. In my opinion, the authors are insufficiently careful to distinguish between irreducible architectural advantages and disadvantages and the (temporary) advandates and disadvantages resulting from current implementation decisions. They are also a little slippery about identifying which features are already present in Alpha implementations and which are not yet delivered (e.g. SMT).
The implementation of simultaneous multithreading is something I very much would like to see. I'm impressed that they're able to do it as simply as this paper seems to imply.
One Alpha advantage (one that I think falls in the irreducible category) that I've never seen Digital/Compaq play up is the angle of binary compatibility of the Alpha instruction stream across different implementaions of Alpha. A binary executable that the compiler has tuned/targeted to a specific implementation of Alpha will still run, perhaps not quite optimally, on a later implementation.
Out-of-order execution is key, here. Because the programmer (or compiler) have to be explicit (with memory barrier instructions) about dependencies that might otherwise be hidden, the instruction stream in the binary executable file documents an idealized instruction execution order -- but any execution order that achieves the same result is also acceptable.
More outstanding data fetches, larger out-of-order instruction queue and wider simultaneous issue all work together to transparently make the old code work better. I haven't seen where increasing the VLIW bundle from 3 instructions to 6 instructions, for instance, would be as transparent -- so there's a much stronger need to recompile and maintain separate binaries targeting the various implementations of IA64.
If you do a lot of very CPU intensive tasks, the alpha is quite a bit faster than a comparable x86 box. ...) is x86 only. If you need any of those, An alpha is not the right choice for you.
Other stuff (disk I/O, etc) is not faster than x86, and some hardware (e.g. many recent 3D graphics boards) can't be used in alphas.
Also, you should be aware of the fact that most closed-source Linux software (StarOffice, Netscape, Civ3,
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
I work on Tru64 Unix, and I can tell you most assuredly that Tru64 and Alpha are both available today, and both are thoroughly 64-bit!
I sure hope the anonymous Intel employee that wrote that script is reading this! :-)
:-)
I think that you can arrange that...
I will take your word on both his gender and Perl expertise as well.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Using WHAT tests? I am having a VERY hard time believing a OC'ed 400A beats a 767MHz 21264! Also, a LOT of the speed problems on Alpha come from the compiler not optimizing very well or at all. Now that Compaq has released their Fortran and C compilers (and C++ soon) things will change quickly! Ohh, and AFAIK you CANNOT compile code as 32-bit binaries on Alpha Linux, you can on Tru64 UNIX and run it on Alpha Linux, but you cannot compile a 32-bit binary on Alpha Linux!
LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!
Intel today is the king of the chip world. Why?
Because when IBM was looking for a CPU for their PC, Motorola couldn't guarantee they could make enough 68K's.
It's too bad, because the 8086 set PC software back 5 years.
(defvar prefix '("Pent" "It" "Max" "Ath" "Cort" "Trit"))
(defvar suffix '("ium" "alon" "ex" "anium" "oricon" "agon" "on" "eres" obos" "ymede" "itan" "erion"))
(defvar tag '("II" "III" "IV" "Pro" "MMX" "Deluxe"))
(defun random-element (list)
(nth (length list) list))
(defun generate-processor ()
(concatenate 'string
(random-element prefix) (random-element suffix) " " (random-element tag)))
Hmm.. Perhaps we need a new function in Emacs: M-x intel-chip
The Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC architectures date from the era when the goal was one instruction per clock cycle and a nice, simple CPU with a fast clock. They're a good fit to that model. But we're beyond that now; all the major CPUs are superscalar, with elaborate internal scheduling and parallel execution. With all the scheduling machinery, the programmer-visible instruction set matters less, which is why Intel has been able to wring so much performance out of an instruction set that dates from 1971. With superscalar CPU technology, key RISC issues such as how many programmer-visible registers there are matters much less.
Very Long Instruction Word architectures, like IA-64, require very smart compilers. Which don't exist. One of the compiler groups spoke at Stanford last year, and admitted they were having major problems. All that compile-time scheduling is hard, especially since the optimal instruction layout depends on the relative speeds of different parts of the processor. Early compilers weren't expected to optimize well. IA-64 looked more like an attempt at product differentiation in response to AMD than real progress.
It's worth noting that the Pentium Pro/II/III have a 48-bit segmented addressing mode, allowing physical memory beyond 4GB. Nobody uses this yet, but it's in there. It would be a coup for some Linux vendor to support this, allowing Linux PC-type machines bigger than 4GB. There'd still be a per-process limit below 4GB, but the entire machine could be bigger.
I know some people in academia working on alternative architectures, but nothing looks really promising. You need at least a 2X gain to justify changing instruction sets, and nothing on the horizon provides that.
Incidentally, a machine that executes Java bytecodes isn't the answer. It's hard to make a fast stack machine; too much implicit sequentiality.
It's going to be tough for Digital to edge into Intel's market, mainly because nearly all consumers have been brainwashed to look for the "Intel Inside" Logo.
I seriously doubt a consumer is going to want an Itanium. Or even an Alpha. These chips are designed as server and technical computing workhorses.
Like with the Alpha, all the operating systems and applications will need to be ported to the new IA-64 architecture to see any useful speed gain. All reports indicate that the on-board x86 compatibility is dog slow, with no appreciable performance gain over Pentium or Athalon chips. Why should gran'ma buy a $5000 Itanium box when the $999 iMac will run rings around it when running Quicken or MS Office?
Then there is the issue of native software: Linux, and NetBSD are gimmies. HP-UX is going to be forced marched to IA-64 (HP originally developed EPIC for the HP9000). IRIX and SCO are "definite maybes".
Sun and Microsoft, on the other hand, will probably port their OS to the platform in hopes of killing it. Microsoft had ports of NT on x86, PowerPC, MiPS and Alpha. Only x86 remains. Like with the older RISC architectures, MS will port and support the platform for a little while, but won't port it's applications, and won't promote their OS on anything other than x86. This way, Microsoft can keep control of their hardware market, and deny competitors popular support for their primary platform. And, when the market drops out, MS can quietly discontinue NT for IA-64, and place the blame squarely on Intel; just as they've blamed Compaq, Apple, and SGI for the failure of NT on RISC. Sun has a cross-platform strategy with similar goals: get them hooked on Solaris, and then entice them over to SPARC, where the applications are.
MS likes x86 becuase it -owns- x86. Linux will always be an also-ran on x86: merely a "Hobbyist's OS". The blind loyalty to intel and x86 I find expressed here is disconcerting. The only thing that will allow Linux to overcome proprietary systems is -ubiquity-, and that means cross-platform parity. Use the fastest and the best when available. That, more often than not, means Alpha.
SoupIsGood Food
It's very simple really. Check out this article in Salon for details.
cjs
The world's most portable OS: http://www.netbsd.org.
i don't see any alpha mobos or cpus in frys or on pricewatch. or any other 64 bit cpu.
how exactly is that "competition?"
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
5 years?
the 386 came out in 1985 i believe (1986 at the latest), and 14 years later, windows 9x is still largely *16* bit.
i wouldnt guess that 32 bit desktop software will die until at least 2010...
smash
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Dear Lord!
OK, Netscape, SO, and Oracle are binary-only products, true. However, as someone pointed out, there is 32-bit x86 binary emulation under Linux, so you can run these if you really have to.
MySQL and ssh can both be compiled. True, you do have to be one level above "retarded aardvark" to compile MySQL, but not ssh!
./configure
make
make install
Works on every Linux for me, PPC, x86, and alpha. Anyway, how can you possibly trust someone else to make a "safe" binary of something so critical as SSH? Plus, if you live in the US, you have to use the RSAREF version, so you need to compile anyway...
A bit of effort, please...
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
You mean they've made a comeback?
(defun intel-names ()
;)
"Function to generate random names for Intel's next processor:"
(let ((prefix '("Pent" "It" "Max" "Ath" "Cort" "Trit"))
(suffix '("ium" "alon" "ex" "anium" "oricon" "on" "eres" "obos"
"ymede" "itan" "erion"))
(tag '("II" "III" "IV" "Pro" "MMX" "Deluxe")))
(concatenate 'string
(nth (random (length prefix)) prefix)
(nth (random (length suffix)) suffix)
" " (nth (random (length tag)) tag))))
;Hey, you knew *someone* was going to do it.
-- You can actually change my mind with a good argument.
Alpha's strength is floating point... try running a raytracer like Povray or something on both the Celeron and the Alpha (or if you want to be boring and forego the pretty picture, invert some big matrices :).
I think that's number 3, but I just copied it from m-w.com. Don't ask me.
--GnrcMan--
Sorry, I must have misheard you. Did you just call it limited? I honestly can't believe that- go check out the W3C's Style Sheet Reference and come back and tell me that again. Style sheets offer so much more customizability and layout freedom than standard HTML, but they rejuvenate an admittedly limited standard... and Mozilla is the way to go for the correct rendering of them!
</plug>
Usually I'm silent when people moderate my comments up or down but C'Mon!
.ps version and it's marked as Overrated. Don't you think the link might be useful for some who aren't blessed with .pdf viewers?
I post a link to a
--GnrcMan--
Just what I wanted to ask, actually. Like most /.'ers, I didn't need a big technical document to see that Alpha's kick butt.
See Motorola's microprocessor info at http://mot-sps.com/
At 450Mhz, their top-of-the-line MPC7400 (aka G4) produces 825MIPS. This is comparable to my AMD K7 @ 700Mhz or a PIII/800.
PowerPCs are at the heart of (all?) IBM RS/6000s and SP (super^H^H^H^H^Hbig computers).
Unlike Intel, I don't think microprocessors are a do-or-die prospect for Motorola's business (at least for consumer markets).
So, where do they fit?
I heartily endorsed your idea till I remembered that Jobs did use the 68K for the Mac, and he independently managed to set personal computer software back, ironically even further by coming up with a machine good enough to last longer, but with software so broken it disallowed multitasking for more than a decade! Why is it that people like Gates and Jobs wind up with the "supervisor bit", and are even lauded for technical wizardry?
Intel primarily targets their CPUs at the Windows market (Wintel and all that), but since there won't be a 64-bit M$ OS until 2002, who cares? Itanium will only be good for Linux and some washed up other Unices. May as well stick with alphas, which at least have run Linux for a while, as well as having a mature commercial Unix (Tru64).
Following the suggestion, here are a few ports of the above program to some popular languages (substitute underscores for spaces when obvious):
:P
* Scheme
(let ((rand-elt
___________(lambda (l)
________________(list-ref l (round (rand (length l))))))
______(prefix '(Pent It Max Ath Cort Trit))
______(suffix '(ium alon ex anium oricon agon))
______(tag '(II III IV Pro MMX Deluxe)))
_____(begin
__________(display (rand-elt prefix))
__________(display (rand-elt suffix))
__________(display (rand-elt tag))
__________(newline)))
* Python
def rand_elt(list):
____list[int(rand(len(list)))]
prefix = ["Pent", "It", "Max", "Ath", "Cort", "Trit"]
suffix = ["ium", "alon", "ex", "anium" "oricon", "agon"]
tag = ["II", "III", "IV", "Pro", "MMX", "Deluxe"]
s = rand_elt(prefix) + ' ' + rand_elt(suffix) + ' ' + rand_elt(tag) + '\n'
print s
That's all for now... I seem to have run out of creativity
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Stop ranting since you haven't shown any real proof. Take a look at the SPEC95 stats which I found on compaqs and hp's sites. SPECint95 SPECfp95 PA-8500/440MHz 33 53 Alpha 21264/667mhz 44 66 Also, I'd bet that Alpha systems cost three times less. HP hardware is rediculously expensive. Compaq isn't much cheaper either, but you can buy Alpha based systems from independent integrators also.
I'm not saying that they're using it because it might support this or that, but wouldn't it be nice if there was that option???
If x86 Linux is headed towards the mainstream, then it's RISC cousins need to be able to have a mechanism in order to use all the software available to x86, otherwise they'll always be treated as second rate to x86.
And yeah, running Oracle in emulation would be just dumb... but for something not as performance hungry, like WordPerfect or Opera, it'd be nice to have the option, i'd think...
srand()
split("Pent It Max Ath Cort Trit", PRE)
split("ium alon ex anium oricon agon on eres obos ymede itan erion", SUF)
split("II III IV Pro MMX Deluxe", T)
b=rand()*100; c=rand()*100; d=rand()*100
CONVFMT = "%2i"
a=b ""
x=c ""
y=d ""
printf "%s%s %s\n", PRE[a%6 + 1], SUF[x%12 + 1], T[y%6 + 1]
}
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"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?"
I happen to know someone that works for compaq/ digital, and I have been told a few things: The original OS that was to be the sequel to VMS was written by a Digital programmer, who was told that they really didn't need an updated version of VMS. He went somewhere else, and it's said that the initials of that system are "one better" than VMS- namely, Windows NT. Second, as the leading (lately second) seller of PC's, Compaq is tied to M$. In spite of this, the development of Alpha's continues, seemingly against Compaq's own visions and goals. Why? Linux, of course- while their proprietary OS reigns on them right now, that may change in the near future.... Just what I heard.
LOL...COMPAQ cracks me up...So when they discover something better than the "vaunted Alpha chip" then waht...and if it happens to be an Intel chip...are they going to ea their words? Anyone own a Compaq...I'm ashamed to say my mother owns one. So far, we have been unable to install anything not blessed by the proprietary demons of hell. So simply put..I guess I will never buy a COMPAQ POS so their opinion, even based upon supposed facts, can simply be placed in the trash next to the AOL discs.
First: ;-)
I visited that site and there are NO 21264's! The fastest they have listed was a 600MHz 21164. A 500MHz 21264 is the same as a 1GHz 21164 (assuming someone had a 21164 that was clocked that high), but as I said there are no 21264's... Perhaps you should read all of the results before commenting that ANY single processor is faster then a single processor 21264!! (sorry for the ranting
Second:
The GNU C, C++, and fortrain compilers are VERY unoptimized on Alpha comparied to x86. I suggest you use the Tru64 UNIX compilers to compile the benchmark app and run it on a 21264 (whatever speed, 500MHz+) and see how much faster it really is.
LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!
Subscribe to the "comp.sys.sun.wanted" and "comp.sys.sun.hardware" newsgroups, and then post a message asking for anyone with some 64bit hardware to reply to you if they have something for sale. You'd be surprised how quickly people respond, and how MANY.
It's way better than eBay, and people in these newsgroups are very knowledgeable about the hardware they're selling. I've had nothing but the best of service dealing with these people.
Good luck!
64-bits buys other stuff, too. For example, larger file systems. Most 32-bit OS'es give you a 2GB or 4GB file or volume size because that conveniently fits in their 32-bit integers. But things get dicey when you start working with digital video, large databases, etc. because you start hitting those limitations. My biggest problem [off topic] with 64-bits is that nobody writes good 64-bit safe code. Any time I try porting some 32-bit package to my dearly loved Alpha's I get nailed by idiots casting 64-bit pointers to 32-bit ints. People, please don't assume sizeof(long) == sizeof(void *)!
One viagra in the morning before work; I just know I'm gonna be screwed
But yeah, it would be nice for code posting. Oh well, just another example of a few sh*t-heads screwing things up for everyone else...
________________________
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
I appologize if this is redundant, and I forget how to preserve indentation.
#!/bin/bash
prefix="Pent It Max Ath Cort Trit"
suffix="ium alon ex anium oricon agon on eres obos ymede itan erion"
taggix="II III IV Pro MMX Deluxe"
function randmember {
members=($*)
idx=$[ $RANDOM % ${#members[*]} ]
echo ${members[$idx]}
}
printf "%s%s %s\n" `randmember "$prefix"` \
`randmember "$suffix"` \
`randmember "$taggix"`
That's how it runs on Alpha - 32-bit address space and, I think, 32-bit page table entries. On Alpha you can do 32-bit page-table entries by doing NT PALcode, as, on all existing Alpha processors, TLB misses are handled in software (well, PALcode, but that's just software loaded into memory from a ROM, running in a special mode that lets it get at processor-specific internal registers), so the software (PALcode) can control what PTEs look like.
I don't know whether IA-64 will do that or not.
Some people get the idea that he is referring to the Itanium as a 64 bit x86 chip. However, he is probably referring to the AMD K8, a 64 bit x86 chip, as I doubt getting Linux to run on Itanium was a simple hack.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Some people get the idea that he is referring to the Itanium as a 64 bit x86 chip. However, he is probably referring to the AMD K8, a 64 bit x86 chip, as I doubt getting Linux to run on Itanium was a simple hack. (Although I hate the concept of porting an OS from 32 to 64 bit be considered a "simple hack" under any circumstances. Doing stuff like that gets you stuff like X.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Some people get the idea that he is referring to the Itanium as a 64 bit x86 chip. However, he is probably referring to the AMD K8, a 64 bit x86 chip, as I doubt getting Linux to run on Itanium was a simple hack. (Although I hate the concept of porting an OS from 32 to 64 bit be considered a "simple hack" under any circumstances. Doing stuff like that gets you stuff like X.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Actually, the POWER architechture is at the heart of those machines. PowerPC is a significantly lower performance proc. As I remember it an article posted on Slashdot about the HP PA-RISC stated that PowerPC was more or less unworthy of RISC status in that its FP performance is little better than x86. Even theoretically an 800MHz PIII is only slightly (20%) slower than a 500MHz G4 and in reality its probably much less with the PIII pulling far ahead. This comes from the fact that AltiVec is 128 bit and the G4 as two fp pipes. So you have 4floats X two pipes X 500MHz=4 gigaflops. Intel is 64 bit so 2 floats X two pipes X 800 MHz =3.2 gigaflops.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
You think 16 bit will ever disppear?
Look at the PIII. These chips still have 8 bit (8088) backwards compatability!!
Once Intel put an instruction and hardware support into the chip they will never get rid of it no matter how useless and outdated it is.
End dual-measurement, let's finish going metric!
http://gometric.us
Why the hell anyone would want to sling pointers around as though they were integers escapes me, anyway; that's a recipe for disastrous, hell-to-find bugs. There's ALWAYS a better way to get there.
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
On another thread here, regarding the mistaken notion that a machine with 32-bit pointers can't hold more then 2**32 memory, it seems to me that an 11/70 would allow more than 64k of memory per machine, but would only let you map in 64k per process.
PowerPCs are at the heart of (all?) IBM RS/6000s and SP (super^H^H^H^H^Hbig computers).
Not quite - the lower-end RS/6000 systems are built around PPC processors, but the mid-to-high-end RS6k's are built around IBM's POWER-series processors (with which, I believe, the PPC shares some features and lineage). The POWER CPUs are significantly meatier than the PPC.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
HP and IBM have been able to get very close to Alpha performance with much lower clocked chips several times already. Give or take the same process they can never achieve the same clock rates as Alpha though, because Alpha is much simpler. They get their performance from being sophisticated arhictecturally, whereas Alpha is classical barebones RISC. All this tells me that Alpha is going to crash and burn, no matter how much the first iteration of I-64 sucks. You can only raise the clock frequency that much...
That board, the UP1000, is made by Alpha Processor Inc. API is a division of Samsung.
It DOES use the AMD 751 Northbridge.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
OK, I'm almost certain no one will either read this or care because I'm so late in posting, but you know what? Compaq's writers really don't know what they are talking about. It had to be some marketing guy sitting up there taking bits of things he read and pasting them together and then filling in the holes with what he or she understood to be correct... The biggest problem I had with the article is that they kept saying that the Alpha could do this: Fire out-of-order and Complete (or retire) in-order... This is completely impossible. OK, well you could do it, but it would be a waste of time, money, and speed. Alphas DO NOT complete instructions in program order. The Fire and Complete OUT-OF-ORDER. How does that work you ask? Well instructions that are independant in the same block of code really don't care when the instructions around them are executed, so Alpha fires them whenever is most convinient. But they can't just go back and say: "Well, this one should complete later to maintain program order" because that defeats the entire purpose of superscalar architecture. Program order is only maintained for dependant blocks of instructions (idealy).
Alpha is a superscalar RISC processor. IA-64 is an EPIC processor. EPIC is not VLIW. The difference between the two is simple yet subtle. VLIW is an architechture where instructions are taken and placed into Very Long Instruction Words (hence the acronym). This long instructions called a multiop is what is executed. A Multi-op is made up of usually something like 4 regular instructions that use different resources. The main focus of VLIW is reasource allocation.
EPIC, however, is different in that, instead of sending a multi-op to the processor for execution, a block of instructions which are garaunteed to be independant are sent to the processor. It is up to the processor to decide what gets executed when because it doesn't matter, as the block of instructions is garuanteed to be independant. EPIC focuses on instruction indepedance (and therefore instruction level parallelism is of utmost import).
Alpha, since it is a superscalar RISC processor, makes use of dynamic analysis of the entirety of it's executing code. It must since the complier doen't have the ability to communicate to the processor like it does in EPIC and in VLIW. So, in summary, VLIW can be done using "dumb" processors which focus on executing what it is recieves from the instruction cache VERY quickly; Alpha uses a very complicated piece of hardware that can discover the most efficient way to execute code, but is restricted in speed by size, heat, and complexity; EPIC defines a midpoint between the two, in that it optimizes the architecture to make close to maximum use of current complier technology, and it employs many of the dynamic aspects of a straigh superscalar processor to iron out what the complier couldn't predict.
Unfortunatly, Intel are stupid, and began doing things like adding tons of cycletime shortening hardware to actually predict results of calculations and other unnecessary garbage. They are idiots, and don't know what to do with themselves once they have finally found an efficient way of doing something. In truth, HP came up with most of the good stuff anyway... In my (qualified) opinion, Alpha can be a better processor than Intel will produce, simply because the designers are more practical. But they need to find a new tech writer who actually understands that about which he or she is speaking. (NO FOCI processors exist, and alpha is a FOCO processor) (FOCI: fire out-of-order complete in-order, and you figure out the second one)
Hey stop Bashing
.. Please remember that
I fully understand your desire for correct English. But
1. Correcting spelling has never been god netiquette. It is allways offtopic, and it adds noise to the discussion at hand.
2. Some posters have English as a second language.
Writing better then instead of better than might be an eyesore, but come on, how many of you failed to grasp the meaning of the sentence because of the mistake?
Please excuse my spelling & grammar mistakes, but I'll bet my English is better than your Danish
Soren (Copenhagen,Denmark)
TW, OSF UNIX is ancient. It it now called Tru64 Unix, and is rather different than all old OSF. In fact, I'm suprised that you still run OSF: OSF -> Digital Unix -> Tru64 Unix
Here is the output on a brand spanking new XP-1000 for "uname -a"
OSF1 [$HOSTNAME] V4.0 1091 alpha
$ sizer -v
I love you!
$
Ok, well, not the output I wanted, but you get the point. Or I would hope. Well, anyways... I don't care anymore.
A similar issue ran / runs with "Solaris" and "SunOS". Solaris 2.x's (or 7, 8, 31337, whatever) uname reports "SunOS", yada yada.
The guy that said "I'm suprised that you still run OSF" probably just wanted to have something to argue about, be a smartass about, or whatever; who knows (or cares).
-ysyi@alf.dec.com (The Uncaring(tm), yet Still Replying(tm))
On a somewhat similar topic, does anyone know what happened to Tri-Teal's code? They went out of business mid-'99 and they made a CDE for Linux
Good question, especially since SCO UnixWare also use[sd] it...
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
OSF1 is then the name of the kernel.[1]
Tru64 is the marketing name of the system.
similar to:
uname on Sun always gives SunOS x.y(kernel)
Yet SunOS 5+ is known as "Solaris" -> system/marketing.
[1]. Open Software Foundation.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.