Re: What is DEC Alpha?

[Scott Holstad <sholstad -at- CORP -dot- EARTHLINK -dot- NET>]

At 05:02 PM 9/10/98 -0500, Colleen Adams wrote:
>Can anyone point me in the direction of some information that explains
>what DEC Alpha is?
>
>We have supposedly developed a product for a customer (programmer)
>in "DEC Alpha" and I haven't a clue as to what it is or how we document
>for this type of product, as opposed to our other products which are
>developed as APIs and COM interfaces.



I'm horrified!!!  ;)  Not know what DEC Alpha is...?  DEC is, of course,
Digital Equipment Corp., recently bought by Compaq.  Their Alpha chip is
one of the greatest (and fastest) microprocessors ever made.  Certain types
of software and hardware are designed specifically with the DEC Alpha chip
in mind.  Unfortunately, DEC never really marketed the chip, it never
really went anywhere (too high end, too expensive), and it's future is
uncertain.  Recently, they left the SGI/Cray world to go into Win95, et al,
but too little, too late.  Will the new owners even bother keeping it
around?  That remains to be seen.  I have heard rumors of Intel buying the
chip.  DEC Alpha, though, is something to be worshipped.  (Or maybe I'm
showing my HW geek bias a tad too much....)


Scott




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Scott C. Holstad                        email: sholstad -at- earthlink -dot- net
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