DEC UNIX has been providing 64-bit for a couple of years.
Try 8 Alpha 8000 series servers all running 12 processors each,
clustered with a 100-MB/Sec memory channel hub, Woo!! :)
I want one.
> ) 12 SMP processors and 28GB of RAM. They also have built a lot of NT 4,
In my opinion the Alpha is wasted on WinNT. NT is still stuck at 32-bit.
> and have built clustering support for it. They also use something they
> call a "spiralog filesystem" that looks a lot like what I believe a
> journaling filesystem is. Something else to consider. The Digital
> rep mention linux 3 times (once or twice in slides) during his lengthy
> presentation.
I've seen the same presentation in Atlanta put on by DEC and M$. The DEC
speaker tries to push WinNT as the future because all of the unix flavors
can't get together, and WinNT is supposed to be truly multiplatform
because -only- the microkernel is ported and M$ has control over the port.
This totally misses the point. I don't see WinNT as an alternative to
"collective UNIX", I see it as another flavor which should be compared
as such. It is an individual OS like Solaris, DEC UNIX, Linux, etc.
What they try to do is pit flavor x against flavor y of UNIX and say
WinNT is the alternative. What it means is you use Microsoft only.
The same goes for OpenVMS. All they can do is take potshots at the UNIX
world as a whole and how all the flavors are in dissarray.
Its not 128 flavors of UNIX vs. WinNT, it is:
DEC UNIX vs. WinNT and
Solaris vs. WinNT and
Linux vs. WinNT ...
This is where they miss the boat, but hey it sure sells their product. :)
> 4> Alpha's look like pretty good machines. I would like to see some
> comparisons between almost equal Intel and Alpha machines.
Alpha stomps Intel in floating point.
As far as other points, I think Intel holds up well, the memory
subsystems are pretty much the same. My Alpha has 4mb cache but I'm
not lucky enough to have a comparable P6 to play with :(
Also Alpha is at, what, 500Mhz now?
Melvin S.