[Info-vax] In memoriam: 10 years since Alpha's passing away.

[JF Mezei]

Apolgies for this late post, I was in the midst of a move.

June 25th 2011 marked the 10th anniversary of the passing of the Alpha
chip. It is fondly remembered, and those respomsible for its demise are
still despised.

It is clear that the architecture that was to replace it didn't pan out
and that should HP/Compaq focused on Alpha, they would have been far
ahead today (and likely at lesser cost).

Alpha gave HP a tested working architecture with a bright future. It
shoudl have kept it instead of going for the untested not yet available
IA64/Itanium, no matter how much money it had already sunk into IA64.

HP could have given Alpha and its developpers to Intel for Intel to
develop as its own high performance chip.

With Alpha done by Intel, it isn't so clear that Intel would have done a
64 bit 8086, and Intel might have had the clout to make Alpha return to
Windows and Linux as a commodity chip.


In fact, when HP bought Compaq, it should have stated to Wall Street
Casino Analysts that obtaining the Alpha chip would give it a working
chip today and allow it to stop spending money on the still vapourware
IA64 saving HP lots of money. Lets remember that LaCarly had very few
true financial justification for buying Compaq. This was a vanity
purchase so that LaCarly could prove she could do something. And in a
Vanity purchase, business common sense is overriden by pride.