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

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> Keith Parris wrote:
>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> JF Mezei wrote:
>>>> 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 in it current way of doing things has some special
>>> hardware requirements.
>> ...
>>> And even how NSK works could be changed if HP decided to.
>>
>> (Probably because Lockstepping started to interfere with processor 
>> performance) NSK changed course for Itanium and no longer requires 
>> Lockstep -- they took a different approach called NonStop Advanced 
>> Architecture (NSAA) where instead of having two pairs of lock-stepped 
>> processors, they instead compare the outputs of 3 processors. Cheaper, 
>> faster, and can use mainstream processors. See 
>> http://h20223.www2.hp.com/NonStopComputing/cache/77119-0-0-0-121.html
> 
> Not surprising.
> 
> Arne

"I've told you once, I've told you twice, what I tell you three times is 
true."