[Info-vax] Current VMS Usage Survey

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> One thing to keep in mind is what was going on at those times ....

(snip)

> It was AMD that upset Intel's nice monopoly plans.  Intel was NOT going 
> to make a 64 bit x86, and even after Athlon came out, Intel tried to 
> maintain that position.  It was only when they saw that the 800 lb 
> gorilla was going to starve to death that they made the big "U" turn. 
> That in turn was the wooden stake through IA-64's heart.
 
> Understand, as long as they had a monopoly, they were going to stick 
> with IA-64, regardless of whether or not it was a good thing for the 
> customers.  It was planned to be a "good thing" for Intel.
(snip)

> But I feel that AMD still would have made the 64 bit x86, and it would 
> have forced Intel to do the same, and Alpha would have become as 
> irrelevant as IA-64 has become.  And then Intel would have had no more, 
> and quite likely less incentive to stick with Alpha.

As I understand it, it was MS supporting AMD x86-64 that forced intel
to build compatible processors. MS wasn't going to port to another
intel 64 bit architecture. (There were versions of Windows for IA64,
though maybe not new ones.)

-- glen