The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
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From: krw on 29 Mar 2007 19:41 In article <a5ydnSEWAcXL2pHbRVnyhAA(a)bt.com>, am.swallow(a)btopenworld.com says... > krw wrote: > > In article <xJ6dnXEY0JL_ipHbRVnyigA(a)bt.com>, > > am.swallow(a)btopenworld.com says... > >> krw wrote: > >>> In article <Mu2dnV2jQ7yzn5HbnZ2dnUVZ8ternZ2d(a)bt.com>, > >>> am.swallow(a)btopenworld.com says... > >>>> Jan Vorbrüggen wrote: > >>>> [snip] > >>>> > >>>>> They do, and VMS is still being actively developed. AFAIK, even the > >>>>> Alpha is not only being supported but being actively developed. Even > >>>>> VAX/VMS was being updated, not just supported, just a few years ago.. A > >>>>> significant number of people a running VMS virtual machines on their PCs > >>>>> because they never ported their applications to something else. It seems > >>>>> likely that these VMs are the fastest VAXen ever built 8-). > >>>>> > >>>>> Jan > >>>> Hmmm. If the VAX and ALPHA instruction sets are now public source then > >>>> clones can be made. Using a PC or Apple bus permits off the shelf ram > >>>> modules and disk drives can be purchased. Writing the CPUs in C or VHDL > >>>> will allow them to be tested on a FPGA and manufactured as ASICs. > >>>> Recompiling the ASIC every 18 months will permit the processor board to > >>>> speed up as the chip foundries reduce gate sizes. > >>> You make processor development sound so simple. Why do you need to > >>> make an FPGA model? Simulations tell you everything you need to > >>> know, likely faster for less money. There will things that > >>> simulations may not find but there is no reason to believe that an > >>> FPGA model will find them any faster/better. > >>> > >> Simulators cannot talk to PC buses etc FPGAs can. > > > > Bullshit. You clearly haven't a clue what you're talking about. > > > >> There will be things in there that are not in the documentation. > > > > There had better not be or your FPGA ain't gunna work either. > > True. That is why the interface is debugged using an easily changed > FPGA rather than a custom chip. You got the horse after the cart. You figure out (or define) how the I/O works before you design the processor to drive it. Put another way, you'd better know what it is that you're designing long before you start. -- Keith
From: Andrew Reilly on 29 Mar 2007 20:09 On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:23:46 +0000, Nick Maclaren wrote: > Dunno. I wasn't talking at that level anyway. If DEC had taken > the decision to produce a new micro-PDP-11, there would have been > a LOT of such issues to resolve. I played with a nice LSI-11 box at Uni. It wasn't new then, but there were plenty of 68000 and a few Z8000 systems around by that time too (both of which could reasonably be called -11 clones). Cheers, -- Andrew
From: Charles Shannon Hendrix on 29 Mar 2007 20:02 ["Followup-To:" header set to alt.folklore.computers.] On 2007-03-28, jmfbahciv(a)aol.com <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: > However, there are a lot of system owners who cannot use that > as their Plan -anythings because they are not in the software > biz. Actually, they don't need to be. We need third parties to do that for them, and that's been "almost but not quite there for 2 years now". Ubuntu, for example, is almost good enough to hand to grandma, but for little niggling issues that have plagued Linux for a long time. Given the mindset of projects like Gnome, I don't see that changing. They are more interested in doing new things than making stable work platforms. > This is a chink that is going to be blocked up when more > people are able to hire experts at retail prices. You can't > do that yet. There is no gas station equivalent for any > Unix maintenance yet. Well, there is for Apple's UNIX systems. One thing that would help Linux a lot is less diversity. Too much is not a good thing. >> I don't use any Mic$hit apps, so >>it shouldn't be too difficult. > > If the outside world of unix went away, would you be able to continue? > That is what you need to think about. If the outside world of Microsoft went away, would you be able to continue? Isn't the answer the same either way? -- shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers." ]
From: Charles Shannon Hendrix on 29 Mar 2007 20:09 ["Followup-To:" header set to alt.folklore.computers.] >>>The alternatives to the Alpha were VAX/VMS and PDP-11s not X86. >> >>.... and SGI, Sun, IBM, Amdahl, Fujistu, Hitachi. > > VAX was not an alternative. It was shortterm. Huh? VAX was presented as, and used as a long-term solution by its customers. Maybe explain what you mean here. If you meant at a certain point in time, then sure... it's days were numbered. -- shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers." ]
From: Charles Shannon Hendrix on 29 Mar 2007 20:14
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.folklore.computers.] > Not really. There were some things that the Alpha was dire at, and > the program could have been dominated by them. Remember too that Alpha was actually released in stages. It wasn't until EV78 that it finally implemented the full Alpha spec in hardware. For example, the 21064 had such bad branch prediction, that stalls from barrier traps were telling if you didn't avoid them. -- shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers." ] |