[Info-vax] Attn VSI employees: Viable full system Itanium emulator for VMS ?

[abrsvc]

On Thursday, February 17, 2022 at 2:17:36 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-02-17, Arne Vajhøj <ar... at vajhoej.dk> wrote: 
> > On 2/17/2022 2:04 PM, Dave Froble wrote: 
> >> On 2/17/2022 9:00 AM, Simon Clubley wrote: 
> >>> I've had some more thoughts about this and it _may_ end up being 
> >>> a viable Itanium full system emulator for VSI to offer after all. 
> >> 
> >> My only questions are "why?" and "who would want such a thing?" 
> >> 
> >> The itanic was never a good idea.  Yeah, throw enough memory and process 
> >> shrinks at something and it will work.  Doesn't make it a good idea. 
> > 
> > VMS users should go for x86-64. 
> >
> When a production quality version is _finally_ available and when it's 
> been around long enough to be trusted. 
> 
> If VSI can deliver a production quality Itanium emulation product a lot 
> quicker than that, and hence allows customers to move from their Itanium 
> hardware to modern hardware, that could be enough to keep some customers 
> that VSI would otherwise lose.
> Simon. 
> 
> -- 
> Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP 
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

Given the general overhead of any emulation product, I don't see any emulation effort viable for Itanium.  The speeds of the Itanium hardware is such that any potential emulator would not be able to provide comparable performance levels.  With the X86 port not too far out, I would believe that the x86 target is a better option.  I expect that the existing Itanium hardware will last until then.

Dan