[Info-vax] OT: About proprietary chips

[Bob Harris]

In article <000fa71b$0$2269$c3e8da3 at news.astraweb.com>,
 JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> wrote:

> Alpha failed because it didn't reach sufficient numbers.

But rumor has it Digital would not make changes requested by 
Apple, so instead of choosing Alpha, then went to PowerPC.

If Apple had choosen Alpha, Digital would have had some volume, 
that might have allowed them to afford developing Alpha.

But that is "Would of", "Could of", "Should of" speculation.

ARM is a well established architecture.  intel even makes XScale 
(formally StrongARM).

There are lots of ARM Licensees so that if Apple wants to switch 
to a faster, lower power, more functional ARM vendor, it can.  It 
is not really locked into their own ARM chip (or at least not at 
the moment; depends on what extra bits Apple adds to their chip 
set that are not available else where).

                                    Bob Harris