Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 11:11:57 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Ross Harvey <ross@teraflop.com>, avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au, peter.jeremy@alcatel.com.au Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: StrongARM and history Message-ID: <19980521111157.O22701@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <199805210109.SAA00831@random.teraflop.com>; from Ross Harvey on Wed, May 20, 1998 at 06:09:52PM -0700 References: <199805210109.SAA00831@random.teraflop.com>
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On Wed, 20 May 1998 at 18:09:52 -0700, Ross Harvey wrote: >>>>>> do we have a strong-arm version of FreeBSD coming up? :-) >>>>> I suspect you'll find a NetBSD version. (There was a talk at AUUG'97 >>>>> on DEC's NC `DNARD', based on a SA-110. >>>> >>>> Sigh. >>>> >>>> Word has it that DEC sold out to Microsoft and scrapped the project. >>> >>> Yes, NetBSD supports the arm32 and the DNARD (there are at least a thousand >>> around here and there) in particular. >>> >>> I heard that rumor too, that M$ said: "So, if you want Windoze NoThanks to >>> keep running on the alpha, cancel that NC project". >>> >>> But, I don't totally believe it. They may have even said it, but I bet >>> Compaq would have pulled the plug anyway: I mean, the whole point of the >>> NC is to make an alternative to the corporate PC avalanche...why would >>> Compaq fund such a thing now that they have the keys? Of course, the >>> cancellation did seem a little early to be a Compaq move. Who knows? >> >> Your prejudice against Compaq seems ill-founded. They didn't buy up >> Tandem and DEC just to kill their operations. I do a lot of work for >> Tandem, and I'm very impressed about how Compaq have focussed the UNIX >> operation and got it moving ahead. To turn the question around, why >> would Compaq not fund such a thing now that they have the keys? > > I didn't mean this pejoratively with respect to compaq. But the > obvious answer to your question "why would Compaq not...?" is: > because the NC's raison d'etre was to undercut PC sales; it was > developed _entirely_ to provide an alternative to buying high-end > megacorp PC's. And it was being...given...away. I didn't know they were giving it away. Compaq seem pretty smart people, and all evidence to the contrary, I think that they are not overly interested in being in bed with Microsoft. They build hardware. The NC is hardware. Why shouldn't they be interested? They don't have to be the ones who give it away. > (Your Tandem "counter" example misses the point, the high end market > addressed by Tandem was never intended to take sales away from > desktop PC's, and the Dnard was a research lab project... Correct. > Tandem didn't even have a research lab, right?) Hmm. I don't think they'd like that statement, but I suppose it's a matter of definition. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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