[Info-vax] RealWorldTech on Poulson

[JF Mezei]

Neil Rieck wrote:

> As I understand the current debacle, EPIC relied on advances in
> complier technology which never occurred. 

How can a compiler predict how a data processing program will execute
since the compiler doesn't have any idea what data will be processed ?

Compilers can do wonderful things when a program calculates pi to
infinite  precision since the logic is fixed and the copiler can really
optimise it. But for situations wherethe flow of the program depends on
the data being processed (data to which the compiler does not have
access), then EPIC can't rely on compiler advances.

The Alpha presentations pre-June-25-2001 that showed why IA64 would not
work are still valid today.

If you gave the 8086 as big a cache as IA64 gets, how much better would
the 8086 be compared to IA64 ?

At the end of the day, IA64 gets palatable performance due to brute force.

> Personal comment: I think Intel and HP are currently at a critical
> point where the next few decisions will allow the Itanium program to
> "take flight and dominate the enterprise  market" or crash.


A rolling stone gathers no moss. Converting IA64 to a normal chip with
the advanced features found on competing platforms will liekly take a
couple of iterations during whic the platform will be in a state of
flux, with customers not too happy with performance unless they have to
recompile/recertify all their applications.

And while Intel/HP are touting Poulson as the next best thing since
sliced bread, lets not forget that the 8086 is not be idle and by the
time Poulson comes out, the 8086 may have even widened the gap between
itself and IA64.

> As far as HP is concerned, PA-RISC
> and Alpha are gone so the death of Itanium would hurt them. 

The plans set forth by LaCarly may contiue: move enterprise computing to
commodity hardware. HP will just need to move its OS to the 8086 and
focus on building a full range of industry standard servers intluding
big iron.

When you compare the costs of developping IA64 and its compilers, it may
end up being much cheaper to port HP-UX/NSK and perhaps even VMS to the
8086 and use existing compilers for that platform.