[Info-vax] rx2800i2 sales/support window changes

[John E. Malmberg]

On 2/13/2014 5:03 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
>
> That leaves the rethorical question of whether a x86 emulating Alpha
> instruction set would yield better/equal/worse performance than the
> same x86 emulating the IA64 instruction set.

An IA64 emulator hosting VMS would only be needed if there is VMS 
software that is only available on IA64 and not on ALPHA.

Are you aware of any?

Some of the Alpha/VAX emulators are doing cached binary translation of 
parts of the code, so the code is effectively running at the native x86 
speed.

By implementing a thunking API in the emulator, it should be possible to 
replace device drivers and loadable modules with customized versions 
that mostly run in native mode, which could be even more efficient than 
the cached binary translation.

There are a lot of tricks that can be done.  Unfortunately hobbyists can 
only do try them on SimH/VAX until someone fixes the ES40 emulator.

Regards,
-John
wb8tyw at qsl.network
Personal Opinion Only