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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?
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
``Insanely idiotic OS''??
Maybe you'd have a leg to stand on if Linux supported the enterprise features that Digital UNIX does.
Unfortunately, it doesn't.
Example: High performance, dynamically resizable, journalling filesystem.
Does Linux have it? No. I'm familiar with the efforts that exist to address this, I work with one of the authors of a major project for this. He'll admit that ext3/reiserfs doesn't touch ADVFS.
Example: Advanced high availability clustering solution with a shared filesystem among nodes, cluster aliasing, and context-dependant symlinks for a SINGLE disk image shared amoung up to 8 cluster nodes.
Does Linux have it? No. Be aware that Beowulf is NOT an HA solution - it's a distributed computing cluster.
Perhaps you should do some more research before blindly bashing an OS that has features that Linux has yet to dream of.
As a side note, the Alpha isn't only used for supercomputing. I'm part of a group that runs 3 clusters of AlphaServers for everything from mail, web, and database serving. Only recently did DEC/Compaq enter into the supercomputer arena with the ``SC'' series of Alphaserver.
Your typical DS/ES/GS series AlphaServer may not be meant for your average joe-blow computer enthusiast, but 14 processors does not constitute a supercomputer. The new ``SC'' series AlphaServer that DEC recently released is a 64-512 Alpha CPU model. THAT is a supercomputer.
I've been using Linux since 1995, and Digital UNIX since 1996, so I've got a pretty good feeling on the comparisons between them.
-Jeff
Moderate this down as flame bait if you like - but I have a feeling that most readers have never used Digital UNIX/Tru64, and don't have enough knowledge of it to form a good opinion.