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

[Lee Witten]

johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk wrote in
news:f34e7983-8ffb-416d-8bcd-c62918794768 at f32g2000vbf.googlegroups.com: 
> Fortunately these days in this picture we're not stuck with classic
> x86 architecture. We're talking about its next generation successor,
> the AMD64 architecture, which just happens to have succeeded in being
> remarkably compatible (transparently so, in the vast majority of
> cases) with classic x86 when it needs to be, whilst also behaving like
> a real 64bit architecture when *that* is what's needed.

Agreed.

> As for x86 systems hardware: it's already been pointed out that the
> innards of any reasonably modern low-end Alpha (from any AlphaStation
> onward) were remarkably PC-like in terms of chips and functionalities,
> and the same could presumably be said to some extent for Itanium,
> especially if Quickpath for Itanium ever actually comes out (even
> though it's no longer going to be socket-compatible, it presumably
> needs to be architecturally compatible, unless silly subsetting games
> and the like come into the picture).

There are enough differences to make support a non-trivial effort.

And if the hardware is identical, there won't be much if any advantage
for using itanium/alpha, other than if you need to run vms.

One could have seen the itanium floating point as a strong advantage,
but it's almost nil versus the nahalem (sp) generation of x86 CPUs.