[Info-vax] "x86 has only a few years left in the market place" (was: Re: Free Pascal for VMS ?)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2018-05-12 18:35:39 +0000, seasoned_geek said:

> On Saturday, May 12, 2018 at 11:27:18 AM UTC-5, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> 
>> It's too expensive and too high-end
> 
> When it comes to throughput there is no such thing as too much or too high end.

For the folks where budget and schedules and staffing are generously 
available, sure.

Most of us aren't in that world, though.  We're buying servers and 
processors that get produced in volume, because it's good enough and at 
a price we're able and willing to pay, and the production volumes 
allows the vendors to amortize the costs.

Performance-competitive bespoke server processor designs are 
exceedingly expensive.   As are wholly-bespoke software designs trying 
to compete with open-source packages.  And with development costs that 
are hard to amortize.

We'll eventually learn how the performance of OpenVMS on x86-64 
compares to that of Itanium and Alpha, too.  Neither of which are 
exactly leading-edge performance architectures by present-day 
standards.  I expect x86-64 to do better.

VSI has to make products that folks are willing to purchase, and to 
fund profits for their investor and their current costs and future 
development work.





-- 
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC