[Info-vax] Kittson question

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Tuesday, 6 January 2015 22:05:04 UTC, Stanley F. Quayle  wrote:
> There was a single-card Alpha that was intended to be used for embedded
> applications. I'm not sure if it was ever successful.
> 
> One version of CHARON-AXP can emulate it. Why? Because the number of
> license units required is the least of any Alpha system. When moving
> from a physical Alpha, emulating the DMCC guarantees that your licenses
> will be sufficient. The speed of the emulated system is the same as for
> any other emulated Alpha, since the CPU emulation is the same.
> 
> I've had clients wanting to create a "new" virtual system, that is, not
> transferring licenses from a previous physical system. The DMCC license
> costs are less than any other Alpha system...
> 
> 
> -- 
> Stan Quayle
> Quayle Consulting Inc.
> 
> ----------
> Stanley F. Quayle, P.E. N8SQ  +1 614-868-1363
> 8572 North Spring Ct., Pickerington, OH  43147  USA
> stan-at-stanq-dot-com       http://www.stanq.com
> "OpenVMS, when downtime is not an option"

Stan, you may want to re-read Hoff's recent post where he notes there's
a certain resemblance between "modern" unikernel software, and the way
that VAXELN worked starting thirty years ago. 

There were multiple DEC VME cards with Alphas on. Some single-slot ones,
using the 21066/21068 as probably more familiar in Multia. Others with
21064 or 21164 on board needed rather more power (and a proper heat sink)
so ended up using two slots. Tru64 and VxWorks were the intended OSes; I
don't think VMS worked (never mind was supported) but it was a long time
ago and my memory is volatile in parts these days.

There were also PICMG cards with 21064 and 21164 cards - the DMCC product
range which you mention. 

The performance per cubic foot available with a Takara (21164 on PICMG in
a very compact box) made it very interesting to some taxpayer-funded
customers. There have been some on eBay UK in recent years at quite
reasonable prices. I missed out :(

Parts for a VAXELN system are much the same as for most other VAXes. 

In the unlikely event of you needing VAXELN expertise, there may be
ways of addressing that too.

"The DMCC license costs are less than any other Alpha system... "

I'm surprised people who can afford Charon/etc would need to fuss
much about the cost difference between DMCC licences and other Alpha
licences.

Chances of ever seeing an embedded or realtime IA64? Presumably zero.