From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue Jan 27 15:47:22 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA14463 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:47:22 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gateway.sequent.com (gateway.sequent.com [138.95.18.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA14389 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:47:15 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from seifert@sequent.com) Received: from eng4.sequent.com (eng4.sequent.com [138.95.7.64]) by gateway.sequent.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id PAA25140 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:46:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (seifert@localhost) by eng4.sequent.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id PAA04112 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:46:38 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199801272346.PAA04112@eng4.sequent.com> X-Authentication-Warning: eng4.sequent.com: seifert@localhost didn't use HELO protocol To: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD/Alpha Date: Tue, 27 Jan 98 15:46:38 PST From: David Seifert Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > Sometimes you have to make decisions based more on marketing reality > than the pursuit of warm technical fuzzies, and I daresay there was > much wailing and gnashing of teeth there at Sequent when you guys > ditched the far more elegant NS32532 architecture in favor of the x86. > Gosh, it almost makes it sound as if Sequent is in bed with Intel now > or something! :-) I'm not speaking for Sequent, or visa-versa. I wasn't at Sequent when they switched from ns32k to x86. (I was at Tek doing ns32k workstations.) I suspect that many of the engineers were/are unhappy. 100% of Sequent's founders came from Intel. The 386 wasn't out yet when Sequent started. > It's not so much where ALPHA is now that worries me, it's where it > will be in 3-5 years. Ever hear of a self-fullfilling prophesy? > No, it only says that *some* free software is ready for prime time in > a *certain* scenario. I didn't mean to imply that all free software was ready for all serious applications. -Dave