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

[Scott Dorsey]

David Froble  <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> David Froble  <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>> Regardless of whatever their previous source, today's x86 CPUs is about 
>>> as good as it gets, today.  Shitty beginnings or not, run the benchmarks 
>>> and weep ....
>> 
>> And this is in fact the case, but it is the case only because Intel has put
>> vast amounts of engineering and money into making the pig fly.
>
>It's also the case because there's not many alternatives.
>
>> It is a shame that money could not have been used to develop a better
>> architecture in the first place.  Intel tried to do that with the i860 and
>> i960 but just couldn't get the market interested.  But you can't blame them
>> for not trying.
>
>Intel could have taken over Alpha.  They choose to not do so.  Look what 
>they have done with the pig they choose instead.

I don't think Intel really chose it.  I think it got away from them.  They
have repeatedly attempted to replace the x86 architecture with the iAPX 432,
i860, i960, and iTanium, without being able to get a foothold in the market
for any of these better architectures.

Why would Intel take over Alpha?  They already had a perfectly good high
performance RISC architecture with the i960.  The only problem with it is
that they couldn't get people to buy it.  Had they taken over the Alpha 
they'd have had two competing high performance RISC architectures that they
couldn't sell.

>All Intel cares about is the dollars.  Some might say, "what else 
>matters?"  In that we see the difference.  Some care about excellence. 
>Some don't.  I know which I'd choose.  But, it seems the money wins.

Oh, absolutely, but that's how the market is.  And all Intel's customers
care about is performance; they will take an inelegant and sloppy machine
that has been tweaked to the point of being very fast to a much more
elegant system that is slower.

But as long as people keep buying x86 machines, Intel will put more money into
making them faster and then people will keep buying them.  I'll keep buying
them too, because in the end I need to get work done.
--scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."