From owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 16 13:06:06 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: alpha@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BABB116A402 for ; Tue, 16 May 2006 13:06:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from SRS0=ZbrpSB=7E=alasir.com=walter@yourhostingaccount.com) Received: from mailout10.yourhostingaccount.com (outmail80.yourhostingaccount.com [65.254.253.80]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40D0D43D46 for ; Tue, 16 May 2006 13:06:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from SRS0=ZbrpSB=7E=alasir.com=walter@yourhostingaccount.com) Received: from scan19.yourhostingaccount.com ([10.1.1.247] helo=scan19.yourhostingaccount.com) by mailout10.yourhostingaccount.com with esmtp (Exim) id 1FfzFV-00056C-Ai for alpha@freebsd.org; Tue, 16 May 2006 09:06:05 -0400 Received: from webmail03.yourhostingaccount.com ([10.1.1.38] ident=exim) by scan19.yourhostingaccount.com with spamscanlookuphost (Exim) id 1FfzFU-0001bq-Ro for alpha@freebsd.org; Tue, 16 May 2006 09:06:04 -0400 Received: from webmail03.yourhostingaccount.com ([10.1.1.38] helo=webmail03.yourhostingaccount.com) by scan19.yourhostingaccount.com with esmtp (Exim) id 1FfzFS-0001bl-7U for alpha@freebsd.org; Tue, 16 May 2006 09:06:02 -0400 Received: from [85.235.204.154] by webmail03.yourhostingaccount.com via HTTP; Tue, 16 May 2006 09:06:02 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary Mime-Version: 1.0 From: "Paul V. Bolotoff" To: alpha@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain X-Mailer: AtMail Corp 3.64 - http://webbasedemail.com/ X-Origin: 85.235.204.154 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 09:05:46 -0400 Sender: "Paul V. Bolotoff" Cc: Subject: Re: HEADSUP: Alpha support is being retired in 7.0 X-BeenThere: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: walter@alasir.com List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the Alpha List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 13:06:07 -0000 I'm afraid that's a hoax. The Chinese have placed their bets on the MIPS architecture (search for Godson and Godson-2 processors by BLX IC Design). I see no reason why they should support another RISC architecture. By the way, AMD cooperates closely with BLX since 2003 (they have established a development centre in Beijing). PVB On Mon, 15 May 2006 16:56 , 'Rafael Ruiz' sent: >Hi! >In this paper says that Chinese military works on their own cloned Alpha EV8 / EV9 >processors, and they running COSIX (Chinese Tru64 UNIX whose source code Compaq >gave to the China sometime ago, plus EV8 etc plans that might have >leaked out of the US). > >Please, see http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4266 > >Rafa > >2006/5/15, Paul V. Bolotoff < >walter@alasir.com>:That's sad very much. However, the architecture may be revived sooner or later. The instruction set is free, and most original patents of DEC are expired by this moment. Thanks to DEC, the architecture and its hardware implementations are well-documented. There are open-source operating systems, compilers, assemblers and other development tools available, so it's a matter of time for some enterprise to pick everything up and blow a new life into the architecture. We'll see what we shall see. > > >By the way, the Alpha processors have never had integer division implemented in hardware. Not a drawback though, because it's a relatively complicated instruction. It takes an advanced computational logic and dozens of cycles to complete execution anyway (about one bit per clock cycle). To throw an example in, Athlon64-family processors can do that in 42 cycles for 32-bit operands or in 74 cycles for 64-bit ones. Finally, it isn't an easy task for hardware engineers to get it pipelined properly... > > >PVB > >-- >-- > >Rafa. > >Alpha back to life.