[Info-vax] OT: IBM Offering $9-10 Per Share for Sun

[JF Mezei]

Arne Vajhøj wrote:

> What should be the point?
> 
> HP's management knows that it can be done.

Not necesaarily. Consider NSK under Compaq/Pfeiffer where he undertook
to port NSK to Alpha. NSK had special features that required "lockstep"
which was a feature that needed to be added to Alpha (scheduled to come
with EV7, not sure if they bothered).

NSK might be able to run on 8086, but it would require special motherboard.

So it is not obvious to anyone whether VMS could run on today's 8086 on
commodity boards with EFI or whether it would need a special board, or
whether they absolutely need a certain feature be added to the 8086.

So if you have a midnight hack that looks into those issues and confirms
via that proof of concept that VMS could run on commodity EFI based 64
bit 8086s systems, this is significant information that HP should know
because if it is planning a post IA64 life, it is important to know
whether your OS can run on commodity systems or still requires special
systems be built.

The proof of concept can also provide estimates on how many man hours
would be needed (akaL how difficult the port) and whether shared code
base between alpha/IA64 and 8086 is possible.

This discussion is moot because we all know HP's commitment to VMS stops
at IA64. By the time the last IA64 systems are sold, HP will have had
VMS for 10 years and that will free it from all the DOE/COO (or whatever
it was) signed by Compaq with the military.