[Info-vax] Itanic is a dead end : IBM

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article
<8918087f-8c77-4718-b929-0ce4b665fa93 at q12g2000prb.googlegroups.com>,
Wendell <wendellxe at yahoo.com> writes: 

> That surprised me and I'd like to hear the story behind it. As I
> heard, scientific computation was the one area where Itanium's unique
> architecture was put to effective use. If HPC was really a success
> story for EPIC, I would expect Fortran compilers (especially from
> Intel!) to target the IA-64 for as long as there were machines in use.

Sad but true: VMS Fortran used to be recognised by all as the best 
Fortran compiler, hands down.  VAX Fortran was a wonderful product.  On 
Alpha, Fortran 90 and 95 compilers appeared and were also very good.  
However, Fortran 95 is the last standard to be supported on VMS, whether 
Alpha or Itanium.  So, HP has effectively bowed out of the HPC sector a 
long time ago.

Yes, perhaps not everyone needs the new features in the new standards, 
but one does want support for the latest architecture.  It's probably 
only a matter of time before even that stops.