[Info-vax] Poulson at hot-chips 2011

[Michael Kraemer]

In article <8bdf9e9e-04c7-4f63-a684-86dfeea56b34 at d18g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
Neil Rieck <n.rieck at sympatico.ca> writes:
> >
> > Not quite correct.
> > DEC themselve killed it.
> > When they sold Alpha to intel in 1997,
> >
> 
> I'm not sure that J.F. would agree with this :-) 

Why am I not surprised? :-)

> Many of us were
> unaware of Alphacide until it happened in 2001.

That was Compaq, sure, with some "help" of HP 
in the background, probably.
But the first death knell was rung by DEC themselves
in 1997. They handed over Alpha fabbing to intel
and contractually agreed to use Itanics in the future.
They wouldn't have done all this if Alpha 
still would have been the future "cash cow".
 
> Seriously, while I remember a financial transfer between Intel and DEC
> at that time. IIRC, in involved "Intel being caught stealing
> intellectual property from DEC (they proved it was stuff showed to
> Intel after Intel signed a NDA with DEC; then DEC showed Intel some
> architectural plans for Alpha which Intel then used) -AND- the sale of
> the Hudson Mass semiconductor plant which DEC should not have built.

This is the view of the Alpha fanboys, of course.
But the reality is a bit different, I guess.
Google for "intel dec lawsuit" and you'll find
no sign whatsoever that intel was found guilty of stealing anything.
DEC sued intel for patent infringement, and intel countersued.
In the end, they settled on said agreement 
(fab, Itanic, patent licensing, etc.).
The whole thing had two winners (intel and DEC/Compaq)
and one looser (Alpha).
 
> IIRC, Alphacide occurred on Compaq's watch during the time that Curly
> was negotiating with Carly just prior to the actual "merger" of HP and
> Compaq. Now to be fair, this article:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha

sometimes rubbish finds its way into wikis ...

> states: "The Alpha architecture was sold, along with most parts of
> DEC, to Compaq in 1998. 

DEC was sold lock, stock and barrel.

> Or did HP demand that Compaq sell Alpha during pre-merger talks in
> 2001 making it an HPQ decision?

Probably HP did not want to inherit responsibility for
yet another legacy chip, apart from PA-RISC. 
So the time was right to officially let go the Alpha.

> I'm not sure, but HP kept selling PA-RISC based products in the market
> place for at least two years longer than Alpha.