[Info-vax] OT: news from the trenches (re: Solaris)

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <mda237$35q$1 at pechter.eternal-september.org>,
	pechter at S20.pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) writes:
> In article <ckmtq0FeopeU1 at mid.individual.net>,
> Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>In article <54e6356d$0$44801$c3e8da3$dd9697d2 at news.astraweb.com>,
>>	JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
>>> On 15-02-19 12:16, Dirk Munk wrote:
>>> 
>>>>   I suspect their x86-64 products will only get better each year, and 
>>>> this can only be a good thing if OpenVMS can run natively on them.
>>> 
>>> One risk is ARM.
>>> 
>>> It can be that mobile/embedded will go ARM and computers/servers will
>>> stay x86. Or desktops might move to ARM.
>>> 
>>> Intel has not had success for mobile devices. So even the x86 isn't a
>>> success everywhere.
>>> 
>>> Consider what happened when AMD decided to make a 64 bit 8086, forcing
>>> Intel to throw in the towel on its policy of 64 bit = itanium and
>>> following AMD's lead.
>>> 
>>> Imagine if AMD starts to produce high performance server chips based on
>>> ARM architecture ? This might be quite interesting
>>
>>That is the kind of thinking that brought down Itanium. Do you want
>>AMD to do the same and cede the market back to Intel?
>>> 
>>> In fact, Apple is rumoured to be toying with the idea of moving its
>>> desktops/laptops to ARM.
>>
>>Haven't heard anything about that. Apple alerady was on non-standard
>>chips.  Where did they end out?  And if they moved to ARm and were
>>successful why shold I think it is anything other than more of their
>>followers religion?
>>
>>So much for devil's advocat (although I place little if any value in
>>what Apple users do.  Apple's systems have been technically inferior
>>since thevery beginning.)
>>
>>If you have access to a Windows Server 2012 system take a look in
>>C:\Program Files(x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\bin
>>
>>Come back and tell people what you see.  :-)
>>
>>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> From a VSI point of view, a move to ARM shouldn't be a big deal. In the
>>> past, VMS was tied to vendor who had vested interests in chips, except
>>> for short tenure under Pfeiffer at Compaq. VMS was tied to VAX and then
>>> Alpha, and then to that IA64 thing under HP.
>>> 
>>> But with VSI "free", they become architecture agnostic since they have
>>> no vested interests in any one specific architecture (until they
>>> resurrect the 64 bit VAX, or course :-)
>> 
>>I expect to see that right after I release  64bit RSTS/E.
>>
> 
> Damn... Bill I started a design layout for 32 bit PDP11's back in the 90's.
> You want me to do 64 bit now... 8-).
> 
> The main issue was really getting in different memory management with 
> larger pages...  I'd use 4096 now to match the new disks.
> 
> Who's doing the Basic Plus...
> 
 
People always laugh, but I actually expect that given the full sources for
everything RSTS/E and the necessary permissions to do it, I could probably
single-handedly have a port running on some other architecture in less
than a year.  And being as I am about to be retired (this time for real!!)
in just a couple of months, it's not like I wouldn't have the time to do
it.  Hmmm...  RSTS/E-6809.  Maybe RSTS/E-Z80 and, of course, RSTS/E-agnostic.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>