HP still NOT porting HP-UX to x86?

Re: Common socket?

DEC wasn't the one who tried the common socket, it was actually AMD.

You are thinking of the Alpha 21264 (EV6) bus (forgetting the name of the slot on Alpha), and the original Athlon (K7) using Slot A

K6 used variants of the socket 7 (originally for Pentiums)

The fact that AMD licensed the EV6 design, which was much better than anything else I'm aware of at the time, is IMO probably one of the bigger reasons, why for a while, AMD was crushing Intel performance wise. The first design AMD used which was their own interface was the K8 (Hammer/x86-64/Opteron/Athlon 64, etc) series.

Additionally, there were any released motherboards which could handle both chips, despite being electrically & physically compatible. I think there was one motherboard which I recall a tech demonstration of, where there was a dual slot, with one of each. That was abandoned, as I think it was more of a 'look what we can do'.

Open Source on HP-UX

Go http://hpux.connect.org.uk/

Re: Dummy00001

The problem is not in porting hp-ux to x64, it's in getting the VARs to do so with their apps. Itanium was a porting platform, it was designed to run either-endian and have oodles of registers so it could run any number of OSs and their apps with minimum fuss. Unfortunately, whilst there is plenty of VAR support for x64 from Intel and AMD, getting the port done is not as easy as Itanium. As Sun found out with Slowaris x86, the problem was that nothing that ran on SPARC would run on x86, so they had to try and convince all their VARs to recompile (and often rewrite) their apps to suit Slowaris x86. That didn't happen, or when it did happen it added so much to the VAR's costs that their new version of the app was uncompetitive with apps from other vendors that already ran on Linux or Windows. The VARs would have to be convinced to spend the money to run two dev streams in parallel, one on Itanium and one on x64.

Which is why hp looked at a Linux app compatibility idea, allowing them to dig into the wide range of Linux apps already available. But then you have to convince customers that they will gain some advantage over running that app on hp-ux on x64 that you won't get on Linux, and after hp has done such a good job of selling Linux on Proliant (number one Linux server vendor for years), that would be rather hard to do without damaging that Linux server business, which is what they actually want to use to attack Snoreacle and IBM. So hp seem to have taken the decision that hp-ux on x64 would just be too expensive and disruptive to their own x64 server bizz. Hp-ux beat Linux on hp's Integrity servers because hp really could do more with hp-ux on Itanium VARs than RHEL could, but if it goes to x64 then RHEL are already streets ahead.

The funny bit is that IBM, who have benefited most from Larry's tantrum, also face the same stark choice - port AIX to x64 or let it slowly die.

Re: They should never have dumped PA-RISC

Back when Ashlee Vance was still writing and Andrew Orlowski had other concerns than to whiteknight "Intellectual Property Rights" faggotry, the following was said in

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/03/don_capellas_articulates_hpaqs_vision/

...Capellas mentioned "procurement" as often as navvies swear, and the chap obviously believes that this is the killer feature of the SRCAM merger.

"We've got to do this. We can't do microprocessor better than Intel," he added.

Well, we mused, you can't now, now that you've sold Alpha to Intel.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/14/sircampaq_the_winners_and_losers/

"Last week Capellas promised that Windows and Linux would "eviscerate" mid-range Unix. Taking no prisoners, the Don has decided to perform the task himself at the first opportunity."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/11/16/hpaq_execs_pocket_millions/

As a reward for sacking some of the 15,000 staff who won't be needed in the merged HPaq, HP's top management will pocket $33.1 million in retention bonuses. Compaq's team will receive $22.4 million. The bonuses hinge on the successful completion of the merger.

Re: Re: They should never have dumped PA-RISC

"...Fiorina's drive to basically get HP out of the technology business...." Except Fiorina's big project was the Adaptive Enterprise - essential SaaS, cloud, all that kind of stuff - years before anyone in the industry even had a plan. Problem was it came in after the Y2K cash-burn and companies didn't want to rip out their existing kit to replace it all in one go, so hp had to go away and break it into modules. Oh, is that an example of a technology far in advance of the rest of the market, which would expose the silliness of your post? Why, yes it was! Back under your bridge, troll.

Re: They should never have dumped PA-RISC

"PA-RISC, as with all RISC designs, has limitations that were being fast approached. "

Such as? C'mon genius, fill us in as to what these supposed RISC show stoppers are? (I guess the Sparc and Power dev teams didn't get your memo)

"Itanium has long-since exceeded the performance of Alpha and PA-RISC."

Wow , you mean a current design of CPU exceeds the performance of one whose development ceased pretty much in the late 90s and early 2000s respectively? You do bloody amaze me!

Tell us oh Wise One , do you think perhaps if serious R&D had been spent on those chips that they might possibly have far surpassed the Itanium?

"I assume that news didn't get under your bridge."

No idea, you seem to be occupying the spot under there at the moment.