From: Grant, Clair
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 3:40 PM
To: OpenVMS Systems Software Group
Subject: VMS boots on Itanium
We are please to announce that OpenVMS has booted on an HP i2000 Itanium
system. By successfully executing a DIRECTORY command the official date and
time for the Boot Contest is January 31, 2003 3:31 PM EST.
Many, many people have contributed to this effort, including managers,
supervisors, project leaders, consultants, development infrastructure group,
calling standard committee, engineers working on post-boot projects, etc.
All will receive their well-deserved credit as we proceed. The following is
a very specific set of people; these are the engineers who
designed/wrote/debugged the code that comprises the running operating
system.
list of wonderful engineers removed by Sue Skonetski
Many congratulations!
Whatever anybody thinks about the Itanium strategy, this is a major
accomplishment and an impressive achievement.
-- Alan
===============================================================================
Alan Winston --- WIN...@SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU
Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056
Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025
===============================================================================
> We are please to announce that OpenVMS has booted on an HP i2000 Itanium
> system. By successfully executing a DIRECTORY command the official date and
> time for the Boot Contest is January 31, 2003 3:31 PM EST.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE ENGINEERS AND SUPPORT PEOPLE!!!!!
Does Hoff get to sleep in tomorrow morning? :-)
It looks like it happened about five hours earlier than my
guess. Did anyone get closer than that?
My theory was that it would happen on a Friday night, after
all the annoying distractions had gone home and it was
possible to concentrate on those last few bugs.
Alan
Great. Now that the contractual obligation to Intel has been
fulfilled, can we all get focused back on Alpha EV8+?
> list of wonderful engineers removed by Sue Skonetski
Seems to me that the engineers and their caretaker (Sue) would be far more
important and should have been listed well before managers.
Now that they have completed the port, can they can back to improving VMS on
VAX ????? ;-) :-) :-)
(Damn, I wish a smiley were appropriate here.)
Shane
Congratulations!!!
--
Regards,
Michael Austin OpenVMS User since June 1984
First DBA Source, Inc. Registered Linux User #261163
Sr. Consultant http://www.firstdbasource.com
Many congratulations to VMS Engineering (who in spite of not a few
obstacles and many naysayers have shown, once again, that they can do
whatever they set their minds - and are permitted - to do!)
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Mark Daniel http://wasd.vsm.com.au/adelaide
mailto:Mark....@wasd.vsm.com.au (Mark....@dsto.defence.gov.au)
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
> Many congratulations to VMS Engineering (who in spite of not a few
> obstacles and many naysayers have shown, once again, that they can do
> whatever they set their minds - and are permitted - to do!)
Presumably N-5 or so of the crew avoided naysayers by avoiding
comp.os.vms .
Which is why the engineers deserve an ever bigger round of applause since they
managed to boot VMS on an intel chip DESPITE their managers getting involved
:-) :-) ;-)
Well, about bloody time! :-)
Seriously, this is an amazing result! Surely the product of a truly
Herculean effort by all involved. I will be waving this in a lot of people's
faces over the coming months. It's just great to see VMS punching off the
front foot again!!!
Just one small question (from someone who sounds like he still needs to
sleep with the light on) is it safe to say that all the show-stoppers and
architectural issues are now behind us? And the blue-prints have been signed
off? And the rest of the port (although important and still challenging)
will be more on the formulaic side of creativity? Issues like memory
management and access modes long since solved? If the answer is yes then
it's clear that this effort/result is more than anyone could have hoped for
and it's also clear that *somehow* Digital/Compaq/HP has managed to retain
some of the best brains in the world!
> It looks like it happened about five hours earlier than my
> guess. Did anyone get closer than that?
I'll have to find my bit of paper that I chook scrawled my guess on, but I
might have just snuck in there. I think I was either 11:00am or 1:00pm but
if I'd won I'm sure my DS10 would've been delivered already :-) What was the
prize anyway? I'd always wanted a VMS umbrella. (Please BIGGER branding on
these things in future!)
Is there anyway to get a list of guesses or a copy of my own guess? Did we
get mailed with a confirmation?
Cheers Richard Maher.
Alan Frisbie <Ab...@NelsonUSA.com> wrote in message
news:3E3B05AE...@NelsonUSA.com...
Yes. No showstoppers.
> And the rest of the port (although important and still challenging)
> will be more on the formulaic side of creativity?
Yes/No. Still a bit of work to go. It's be a few weeks before things
become "formulaic"
>Issues like memory
> management and access modes long since solved? If the answer is yes then
> it's clear that this effort/result is more than anyone could have hoped
for
> and it's also clear that *somehow* Digital/Compaq/HP has managed to retain
> some of the best brains in the world!
>
Solved.
Your welcome too. Glad you're still grinding the axe.
a new dawn begins ...
I don't think that there was anyone here who doubted that engineering
could make VMS boot and even run on IA64. The naysayers just doubt it
is the path they should be taking. But that's a managment issue and we
all know how good that is.
bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bi...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
This new era is the perfect continuum of a long long history, that began on
17-nov-1858 and will end at the end of times ....
--
Michel HERRSCHER CONSULTANT
VMSer on VAX and ALHA ( only since 14-jun1979.... VMS 1.3)
Waiting ITANIUMer in later in 2003 ( if INTEL wants it ;) , as VMS did it.
A contrarian opinion isn't necessarily wrong.
I recognize the amount of effort that has gone into this task. Too bad
DEC/Compaq/HP management didn't drive the business side of Alpha as
hard as they have forced this technical tour-de-force you
(collectively) have achieved. The time, effort, and money would have
been better spent having EV8 in the market now. Yes I know that Intel
would not have given the porting money in that case, but don't you
think that an additional $3-4B in Alpha and related software sales
that has vaporized in the wake of June 2001 would have compensated for
that?
The arguments posited by Comapq/HP management sound to me a lot like
the wool the investment industry like to pull over people's eyes (my
specialty is financial services systems, applications, and
consulting). The mutual fund co's. and portfolio managers in general
like to point out in falling markets that their rates of return are
much better than their competitors - "We've had a -14.4% return
whereas fund XYZ has had -17.9% return. So we're much better than
them." Relative performance is a sorry excuse. Do you feel better that
your 401k or IRA has, perhaps, declined less than the market? Does it
really make you richer and more able to retire the way you want to?
To quote the immortal lines from the intellectually hi-brow movie
'Conan The Barbarian', "Fred, what is best in life? To crush your
enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of
their women." It's actually an interesting allegory for business.
EV8, not Itanic nor variants thereof, would have done that in the
current timeframe had development continued and been forced with the
same sense of urgency as the Itanic port has been. Compaq and now HP
have, probably fatally, lost sight of that. You don't really win wars
by ekking out a narrow victory, you win by crushing your opponents.
Narrow victories leave you battered, bloody, and bruised. The
opportunity for Compaq/HP has been squandered.
Here is the list (as provided by Jean-François Marchal on the WASD mailing list.
Merci, Jean-François:
ASSEMBLER
Shafiq Ahmed
Larry Ingram
Helen Willett
Joanne Neschke
IMACRO
Peter Haynes
Karl Puder
John Reagan
C
Walt Carrell
Val McCutcheon
Tom Osten
Rich Peterson
Duane Smith
Ed Vogel
CRTL
Dave Faulkner
Brad McCusker
Charlie MuCutcheon
BLISS / GEM / LIBOTS
Deborah Belcher
Ron Brender
Peter Craig
Lucy Hamnett
Tom Lavigne
Jeannie Lieb
Sheila Mitchell
Members of the Intel Nashua Software Lab
KERNEL TOOLS
Richard Bishop
Chip Dancy
Paul Hider
Anders Johansson
Jeff Nelson
OBJECTS and IMAGES (LINKER, ANALYZE, ...)
Walt Arbo
Josh Cope
Hartmut Becker
Robert Deininger
David Elins
John Hallyburton
Todd Schoeller
Steve Skonetski
DCL, DIR ...
Gerry Gleeson
Dale Gunn
Bob Ingraham
George Maiewski
Phil Nezballa
Larry Pearson
Dave Vaughan
EXEC, DRIVERS, XQP, RMS
Paul Benoit
Ken Blaylock
Tony Camuso
Andrew Crager
Stu Davison
Burns Fisher
Jeff Friedrichs
Doug Gordon
Clair Grant
John Harney
Paul Jacobi
Greg Jordan
Jim Kauffman
Forrest Kenney
Fred Kleinsorge
Andy Kuehnel
Dennis Mattoon
Christian Moser
Gary Newsted
Karen Noel
Paul Rivera
Elinor Woods
Exactly. Terry made the same inane comment to any publication that would
publish him, and it was just as unfounded there. I would like to think I'm
about as persistent a 'naysayer' as exists, and while back when the boot
contest was announced most people seemed to feel the date would be last
summer or early fall I made a more conservative guess (either mid-October or
November - can't recall now) based upon Itanic's absolutely perfect record
of severe slippage (which the recent Montecito announcement continues
unscathed).
So without in any way meaning to minimize the magnitude of the sub-task just
completed, the fact is that even the naysayers turned out to have been
over-optimistic about its completion date. Far from being a refutation of
their attitude, it if anything indicates that it is still under-stated.
- bill
I am not an industry analyst.
I have never profered any opinion (in this forum) on this issue.
In that context I do not think my remark deserved 'inane'.
Perhaps something gentler.
Once again ...
Many congratulations to VMS Engineering (who in spite of not a few
obstacles and some persistent naysayers have shown, once again, that
they can do whatever they set their minds - and are permitted - to do!)
The 'permitted' is also important. I'm sure the Engineering side of VMS
have wanted to undertake many projects over the past decade only to be
ham-strung by CEO and BOD directions. It must be great for their morale
to be getting a major accomplishment under their belts. Of course I
might just be talking out my a**[*] again.
And while I'm back at the keyboard; I amongst many, though I should
imagine not all, would like to say thanks for the sponsored effort in
bringing some important open-source tools to the VMS platform. Keep it
up and keep those tools already ported current please.
true, but what is one mans junk is another mans treasure, and
Intel now has alpha and the alpha engineering team, and they
will take alpha and incorporate it bit by bit into itanium
and they will reap the rewards ...
I'm afraid that whether a comment qualifies as 'inane' is a function neither
of whether one is an industry analyst (though they may be more prone to
utter such than the general population) nor of whether one has ventured
previous comments on the subject.
> Perhaps something gentler.
Since it could have been considerably less gentle without exceeding the
limits of applicability, you might count your blessings instead of
complaining.
>
> Once again ...
>
> Many congratulations to VMS Engineering (who in spite of not a few
> obstacles and some persistent naysayers have shown, once again, that
> they can do whatever they set their minds - and are permitted - to do!)
OK: once was merely inane, but repetition after correction demonstrates
active incompetence - unless, of course, you can point out (with citations)
several individuals who have repeatedly opined that the VMS team would not
succeed in this endeavor (i.e., 'some persistent naysayers').
Clearer now?
- bill
;^) OK Bill, I don't really mind. Wouldn't be the first time I've
been told I was wrong. In the so-called grand scheme of things I doubt
whether this small item oft' will be recorded amongst the annals of
Computer Science 101. Let me rephrase the entire heart-felt citation so
as not to give (or at least reduce as much as humanly possible)
opportunity for further polemic.
Congratulations to VMS Engineering.
oh, is that what we're supposed to be doing?
Brannon
not speaking for Intel
Didn't you know? Bob has certainly made it clear enough, many, many
times...
- bill
Now that's a formulation I have no trouble at all agreeing with.
- bill
Congratulations !
After VAX/VMS, AXP/VMS there's now I64/VMS ....
Hans
BTW Does it have a >>> console prompt ?
Bill, why are you such a jerk? (I could be considerably less gentle.)
> > Once again ...
> >
> > Many congratulations to VMS Engineering (who in spite of not a few
> > obstacles and some persistent naysayers have shown, once again, that
> > they can do whatever they set their minds - and are permitted - to do!)
>
> OK: once was merely inane, but repetition after correction demonstrates
> active incompetence - unless, of course, you can point out (with citations)
> several individuals who have repeatedly opined that the VMS team would not
> succeed in this endeavor (i.e., 'some persistent naysayers').
>
> Clearer now?
>
> - bill
It wasn't a correction. It was an ad hominem attack.
--
John Santos
...
> > I'm afraid that whether a comment qualifies as 'inane' is a function
neither
> > of whether one is an industry analyst (though they may be more prone to
> > utter such than the general population) nor of whether one has ventured
> > previous comments on the subject.
> >
> > > Perhaps something gentler.
> >
> > Since it could have been considerably less gentle without exceeding the
> > limits of applicability, you might count your blessings instead of
> > complaining.
>
> Bill, why are you such a jerk? (I could be considerably less gentle.)
And you seem to feel that your tone (dear me: could it be ad hominem, as
you claim for me below?) is the appropriate one to take. Pot/kettle, I'd
say - but nonetheless I think you'll find that I answered the question just
now in another post.
>
> > > Once again ...
> > >
> > > Many congratulations to VMS Engineering (who in spite of not a few
> > > obstacles and some persistent naysayers have shown, once again, that
> > > they can do whatever they set their minds - and are permitted - to
do!)
> >
> > OK: once was merely inane, but repetition after correction demonstrates
> > active incompetence - unless, of course, you can point out (with
citations)
> > several individuals who have repeatedly opined that the VMS team would
not
> > succeed in this endeavor (i.e., 'some persistent naysayers').
> >
> > Clearer now?
> >
> > - bill
>
> It wasn't a correction. It was an ad hominem attack.
It correctly characterized the observation as inane, and explained why:
exactly what part of that either constitutes an ad hominem attack or fails
to qualify as a correction?
Perhaps your preconceptions just made it a bit difficult to read - but
that's not my problem
- bill
DEC knew how to make customers happy. Compaq did a halfway decent job.
HPQ is a joke, being driven into the ground by Carly Fiorina. Agilent
was the sending of the "smart people" away from the company, they
don't make enough money. HP Calculators? Not profitable enough - fire
all the engineers in the calculator division. Shut the division down.
What I don't understand is why HP keeps this bloated pig of a CPU
around not to sell. I have had the displeasure of testing an Itanium,
and you know what? Its a joke. IBM, man, even Sun, has a much better
shot now at culling HP's business. As Andrea Bocelli says, and I sing
it now for VMS customers as they will sing to you when they leave:
"Time to say Gooooodbyeeeeeeeee"
Whoever you are at HP that posted this: Platt. Gone. Agilent. Gone.
Capellas, lied to and drummed out. HP Calculators. Gone. BRUCE PERENS.
Gone. DEC's legendary dedication to the advancement of the field of
computing, gutted and stripped. HP OpenMail. Cancelled. Customers told
to use that god damn joke named Microsoft Exchange Server. Compaq's
superior handhelds – stolen and assimilated into the Borg Hive at HP.
GET off while you still can. Or Carly just might pink slip your ass.
Since VMS just booted, I think the relevant question would be "when",
not "where".
Since a production quality VMS will not be release for end users until
more than a year from now, current purchase of a multiprocessor IA64
hardly matters for purposes of this newsgroup (developers don't require
such).
Since the fastest Alpha will be faster than the fastest Itanium for
a while yet, there is also no urgency. I am confident that SMP
Itanium systems will be ready by the time VMS and the Itanium
processor are ready for Itanium to be a performance leader in
SMP systems.
Apparently SGI "has it now". At least they appear to have 16/32/64-way
versions http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q1/ As to
whether you could actually pull you pickup to the loading dock today
and get one is another matter.
I'd like to go on record as saying that VMS on Itanic is fine,
especially if marketable, mass-producible, ready-for-prime-time Itanic
systems ever see the light of VMS day. Needless to say, I have my
doubts, and everyday that Itanic is delayed further fortifies that
doubt.
On the other hand, if Itanic only is the target, than no, that is
*DEFINITELY* not the path to take, especially now that AMD seems poised
to take the 64-bit lead.
> But that's a managment issue and we
> all know how good that is.
It would be more correct to say that management, or more correctly, the
lack thereof, *IS* the issue!
OVMS Engr. is, IMO, by far the greatest bunch of tech. folks you'll ever
find. I do not hold their loyalty to their management against them. Be
there a wolf or two among the sheep who has yet to rise up in defense of
VMS, then such is(are) the one(s) I would hold at fault.
--
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://www.djesys.com/
Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page:
http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/
yes, that is exactly what you are doing, otherwise itanium
will be just another boat anchor like all the rest ...
you needed alpha technology ... epic will never get out
of port unless you add alpha technology ... what did you
think you did and got caught in 95-96, you ended up making
alpha chips over that one ... you stole alpha technology
then and now you wnet and bought the whole alpha team to
help you save the good ship itanic ... the only reason
I hold hope for itanium is the alpha team may be able to
save it ... we shall see with chivano and after ...
Bob, you seem to be unaware (surprise, surprise!) that you're talking to a
member of that Alpha team rather than to a 'native' Intel person. But I'm
sure that won't stop you from telling him what he ought to be doing: after
all, what does he know compared to you?
- bill
> To: OpenVMS Systems Software Group
>
> Subject: VMS boots on Itanium
>
> We are please to announce that OpenVMS has booted on an HP i2000 Itanium
> system. By successfully executing a DIRECTORY command the official date
and
> time for the Boot Contest is January 31, 2003 3:31 PM EST.
Congratulations to all involved. This is indeed a good bit of news.
Now how long before we see the I386 port? :-)
And I notice that the boot contest entry page is still there. Is it too late
for someone to enter? :-)
http://h18003.www1.hp.com/hps/ipf-enterprise/openvms_contest.html
Also I notice lots of commentory on the slashdot web site. Looks like not
everyone is a VMS fan... :-(
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/01/1814211 There is also a mention
of this feat on the inquirer pages
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7551 but no mention on the register yet?
Anyhow this news was good to hear! It would be nice if there are some
followups to provide technical information and war stories about how it
went. And some information about how much had to be rewritten (eg did it
involved moving any BLISS/MACRO modules to C? - And has getting rid of VAX
and PAL dependencies helped performance any?)
Now I just need to figure out where I can get a cheap Itanium.... :-(
Paul Nankervis
> In article <3e3b4...@news.chariot.net.au>,
> Mark Daniel <Mark....@wasd.vsm.com.au> writes:
> > Sue Skonetski wrote:
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >>
> >> From: Grant, Clair
> >>
> >> Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 3:40 PM
> >>
> >> To: OpenVMS Systems Software Group
> >>
> >> Subject: VMS boots on Itanium
> >>
> >> We are please to announce that OpenVMS has booted on an HP i2000 Itanium
> >> system.
> > 8< snip 8<
> >
> > Many congratulations to VMS Engineering (who in spite of not a few
> > obstacles and many naysayers have shown, once again, that they can do
> > whatever they set their minds - and are permitted - to do!)
> >
>
> I don't think that there was anyone here who doubted that engineering
> could make VMS boot and even run on IA64. The naysayers just doubt it
> is the path they should be taking. But that's a managment issue and we
> all know how good that is.
Quite right Bill. There's a difference between criticising Alphacide
and criticising a port to Itanium. I don't remember anybody
criticising the _principle_ of the latter, even if they did cast doubt
on the efficacy of Itanium as a CPU per se. Again, any work done in
moving the hardware depencies of VMS down the code ladder has got to
make it easier to put VMS on other platforms.
Now all they've got to do is sell it!
Cheers - Dave.
PS. I almost forgot to say well done to those involved. So : WELL DONE
all !.
> Sue Skonetski wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> >
> > From: Grant, Clair
> >
> > Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 3:40 PM
> >
> > To: OpenVMS Systems Software Group
> >
> > Subject: VMS boots on Itanium
> >
> >
> > list of wonderful engineers removed by Sue Skonetski
> >
And again by me :-)
I'm sure the list is incomplete, Where's Hoff ??
--
Cheers - Dave.
Jesus, Bob, when do you graduate from high school? I am one of the
Alpha team members that Intel 'bought'. I think you have a very
warped view of reality.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'alpha technology'. I'm not
sure what most people mean when they say that. The way you use that
phrase, you make it sound like some sort of magic pixie dust. That's
like saying that the New York yankees have better 'baseball
technology'.
There is no pixie dust. The truth is much less glamorous than that.
Listen closely, because truer words were never spoken...Alpha was
never about the technology. Technology is the easy part. Alpha was
always about the people, and the attitude.
It still is.
But that's the point Bob. They got the Alpha engineers to try and save
itanium but it is their general expertise in chip design rather than the
specifics of Alpha technology which they will have to use.
The philosophy of Alpha and IA64 are so far apart that without a major redesign
of Itanium (ie dropping of Epic and massive streamlining of the chip) then most
of the specific's of Alpha design cannot be successfully transplanted to
Itanium. Any such major redesign is years away (if it ever occurs).
David Webb
VMS and Unix team leader
CCSS
Middlesex University
Tsarkon wrote:
> Snore. Snore. Snore. Itanium is a pipe dream. I hope you know. Where
> can I buy an 8-way IA-64?
>
SGI and Unisys do one. Up to 64 way. Rather Ironic
that its SGI and Unisys and not HP who are first to
market with a large SMP IA-64 based machine.
Regards
Andrew Harrison
Perhaps HP has a better sense of timing.
wrong, IBM and Sun have people, and they definitely have
an attitude, but they don't and never did have the
technology ... alpha did and does ... wothout that it
would just be another chip, and you would not be employed
by Intel currently, but in the unemployment line with
all the other ibm and sun engineers ... and that line is
growing all the time ...
No. And when/if we provide a VMS boot manager, we won't use >>> so we won't
confuse people into thinking it's the SRM.
I'm sure that anyone who needs to know for planning purposes, can get a
presentation of the HP Itanium2 roadmap from their sales rep. Be assured
that the entire range of Itanium2 systems is planned.
The list was a very specific list of those who directly worked on the code
that was used to get us to first boot.
The lack of any particular favorite engineers name doesn't mean they aren't
working on parts of the port, just that their contribution wasn't on the
very narrow areas needed to get this far. Steve is involved both on the
logistics side of making it possible for the architecture sources, as well
as code that will be used for the first release of VMS on Itanium.
Not really.
The HP N4000 introduced in 1999 and replaced by the
rp7400 in 2001 was the first HP server designed
to support Itanium (8 way). It was introduced with HP-PA
processors but was upgradable (theoretically) to Itanium.
Due to delays and little problems like PA being faster than
Itanium this upgrade never materialised and HP N4000 users
who bought the boxes with an aim to upgrade have never been
able to do so. However the engineering was apparently done by
HP. Either that or they weren't being exactly candid with
their customers.
SuperDome was also announced as being Itanium upgradeable
and again the engineering has apparently been done, HP
have also apparently demonstrated Itanium based Domes.
I doubt that many people would agree that this is HP showing
a better sense of timing.
Regards
Andrew Harrison
Absolutely no performance measurements have been done yet. Things are
still too volatile. Many of the compilations were even done with /NOOPT
so you have half a chance of single stepping through the instructions
and understanding what is going on.
As for source rewrites, there was some rewritting from MACRO to C for
things that had to be rewritten anyway. I don't know of any BLISS to C
conversions, but I haven't been keeping track (I've been a touch busy).
There was some MACRO-64 on Alpha that had to be rewritten (some into C
and some into Itanium Assembly).
Given that this is common source with the OpenVMS Alpha source pool, I'm
guessing there aren't any VAX dependencies.
--
John Reagan
Compaq Pascal/{A|I}MACRO Project Leader
Hewlett-Packard Company
If they ported it to UltraSparc, they'd have it on a platform that has
wide commercial success, a large mindshare, corporate America buy-in.
Just speculating.
They are buying Sun, not Ultrasparc, just as people buy VMS not Alpha,
the hardware is just the delivery vehicle.
>
>Just speculating.
>
>
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Hey .. He's back ..
:-)
Re: performance of IA64 ..
A bit of history might help you to better understand.
When the initial Alpha systems came out, they were not as powerful as
the larger VAX systems at the time. Over time, as the HW designs,
compilers, tuning etc became much better, the newer Alpha systems pulled
away from even the larger VAX's.
I expect the same to be the case for Alpha--> IPF as well as PA-RISC -->
IPF.
Oh, but you knew that anyway, right?
:-)
Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co.
Consulting & Integration Services
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax : 613-591-4477
Email: kerryDOTmain@hpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and replace with "."'s)
OpenVMS DCL - the original .COM
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Harrison SUNUK Consultancy
[mailto:Andrew_No....@nospamn.sun.com]
Sent: February 3, 2003 8:51 AM
To: Info...@Mvb.Saic.Com
Subject: Re: OpenVMS Boots on Itanium on Friday Jan 31
It depends what you define as technology.
We can argue about SPARC vs Power vs Alpha until
we are blue in the face, but they are only one
component in a system which also includes, compilers
OS, interconnect, etc.
Whatever you may think about Alphas superior technology
which is an opinion you are welcome to, it is a fact
that this technology lead if it existed hasn't translated
itself into a signigicant measurable lead in any kind
of metric that makes a difference to consumers of systems.
For example there is a dearth of current or historic benchmark
results that show that this apparent technology lead is translated
into leading comparative benchmark results.
The only conclusions you can draw from this that either
the technology lead that you thought the combination of
Alpha and its compilers had over other RISC processors
and their compilers is illusory or that whatever lead
Alpha had was easily offset by it being shoehorned into
systems that trailed their competition from a technology
standpoint.
Designing and building a large server is a holistic process
and doesn't begin and end with the CPU is is also something
you clearly don't grasp.
Regards
Andrew Harrison
Why should HP go to all that work, when for now the Alpha is faster?
SGI and Unisys aren't exactly leading the industry in sales these
days.
They were pretty damn close. I ordered the slowest, cheapest Alpha
DEC made and it ran so close to what a VAX 9000 could do I ignored
the difference.
BTW.. Folks that rushed out to fill in the 'correct' date/time after the
boot.. Those entries are not being used. I pulled all the entries and sent
them
to sue before she put out the notice on comp.os.vms.
sue will announce the winners when she gets all the stuff finalized..
"Paul Nankervis" <paul...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b1kud9$etc$1...@ausnews.austin.ibm.com...
Even though those early ALPHAs were quite expensive (both in
price/performance AND just price) by today's standards, I'm sure they
were much cheaper (both initial and running costs) than a VAX 9000.
> [...]
>
> We are please to announce that OpenVMS has booted on an HP i2000 Itanium
> system. By successfully executing a DIRECTORY command the official date and
> time for the Boot Contest is January 31, 2003 3:31 PM EST.
>
> [...]
Apparently the "OpenVMS boot contest" at
http://h18003.www1.hp.com/hps/ipf-enterprise/openvms_contest.html
is still available to participants on 3-Feb-2003 at 14:20 (UTC) ...
Michael
> [...]
>
> > BTW Does it have a >>> console prompt ?
> >
>
> No. And when/if we provide a VMS boot manager, we won't use >>> so we won't
> confuse people into thinking it's the SRM.
Why??? VAX and Alpha use the very same console prompt and usually
people aren't confused at all ...
(Are you obliged to use "Intel inside>" instead? :-)
Michael
(hope the attributions are OK)
I couldn't find a Unisys 64way (see below). Presumably SGI design+make their
own?
The Unisys Itanium 2 machine I did find seems to be related to an earlier
Unisys ES7000 Cellular MultiProcessing box which Compaq attempted to sell as
the Proliant ML770. The one which Compaq gave up on after no more than a
year because they couldn't find enough customers to buy that particular
vendor/hardware/software combination. There's even a story that Gates
ordered Compaq to sell it or else, to prove Windows Datacentre was
enterprise ready.
Anyway, as I read it, the Unisys ES7000 Itanium 2 only goes up to 32 in a
box, and it is actually two independent 16way systems. 16way could class as
large in some markets.
The only reference I could find to a 64-way Unisys Itanium box is a brief
reference to a hypothetical bizarre combination of 32 Xeons and two sets of
16 IA64s in the same box (mentioned briefly in last para of 64way ES7000 URL
below).
However, didn't Fujitsu also recently announce a range of big SMP Itanium 2
machines, up to 128 CPU planned (by 2005 using dualcore CPUs)? Can't find
any real details with a quick glance at Fujitsu Siemens UK website though. A
search for Itanium gives old-hat results. Fujitsu Siemens are an x86 and
SPARC shop today. In fact the only recent Fujitsu Itanium reference I could
google reasonably quickly is the one I read first:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/29007.html
Btw, the other thing I found interesting about this little bit of research
is that the Unisys community manages to sustain a monthly magazine. If they
can, what were DEC User etc doing wrong?
regards
john
Proliant ML770 links:
Now you see it: http://www.unisysworld.com/monthly/2000/04/comtoadd.shtml
Now you don't: http://www.unisysworld.com/pressrel/2001/05/01_compaq.shtml
It looked like this: http://www.compaq.com/products/servers/proliantml770
Unisys ES7000 for Itanium 2:
http://www.unisysworld.com/monthly/2002/08/itanium.shtml
64way ES7000: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/26205.html - last
paragraph.
Bill,
I think it's fair to say that many of your comments here generally can be
characterized in this way -
"I think XXX will fail to YYY, but even if it does succeed, it doesn't
matter because Alpha would have been better."
I also think that you look for joy/validation in the potential failures of
Intel, Microsoft, IPF, HP, various former and current executives, and
ultimately VMS.