[Info-vax] 64-bit Windows on Alpha

[Ben Lambert]

On Tuesday, 11 January 2022 at 13:14:56 UTC, Andrew Brehm wrote:
> On 09/01/2022 19:54, Ben Lambert wrote: 
> > I appreciate this isn't VMS related, but of interest due to the connection with Alpha (and Itanium) 
> > 
> > A fascinating story has popped up on Raymond Chens blog (The Old New Thing) regarding both the development of 64-bit Windows for Itanium, and a strange issue with porting the (legendary) Space Cadet pinball game that has come with multiple iterations of 32-bit Windows from Win95 to WinXP to the 64-bit version(s) of Windows: 
> > 
> > 1) Due to a lack of Itanium hardware, and the state of the Itanium simulators at the time, the team instead opted to port 32-bit Windows to 64-Windows using Alphas instead - noting that the Alpha version would never actually ship. They used their Alphas that were lying around after the Alpha version of Win2000 was cancelled (thanks Compaq...); Win NT and Win2000 on Alpha were 32-bit despite the processors 64-bit capability. 
> > 
> > So theoretically there's a 64-bit version of Windows XP/Server 2003 that 'ran' on Alpha hidden away in the internals of Microsoft. 
> > 
> > 2) Porting Space Cadet pinball from 32-bit to 64-bit on Alpha resulted in a collision detection bug that couldn't be fixed and so the game was removed from 64-bit Windows until a fix was found for a later version. 
> >
> Wikipedia mentions that 
> 
> "During development, there was a build for the Alpha which was abandoned in the final stages of development (between RC1 and RC2) after Compaq announced they had dropped support for Windows NT on Alpha." 
> 
> I had heard about that before. 
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2000

Yes, there has been a beta of Win2000 floating around for Alpha for a long time, but it was still only 32-bit software.

This, I believe, is the first mention of a 64-bit version of Windows for Alpha, and based on the later XP/Server2003 code base.

Ben.