[Info-vax] VSI licencing policy (again), was: Re: VSI has a new CEO

[Lawrence D’Oliveiro]

On Monday, August 9, 2021 at 4:27:34 PM UTC+12, John Dallman wrote:

> [Windows NT] was initially shipped on MIPS, PowerPC and Alpha, and the dropping of 
> those platforms was because they weren't much used, rather than because 
> they didn't work. It then shipped on Itanium, which was dropped because 
> the market preferred x86-64, rather than because it didn't work.

All of which were supported on Linux, and continued to be supported on Linux long after Microsoft had abandoned them. So you see, it wasn’t just a matter of the popularity (or not) of those architectures.

Alpha is an interesting case. In spite of it being a 64-bit architecture, Windows NT only ever ran on it in 32-bit “TASO” mode. OpenVMS got as far as a hybrid 32/64-bit port, but I don’t think it ever managed to go full 64-bit.

The only two fully-64-bit OSes to run on Alpha were DEC’s Tru64 Unix ... and Linux.