HP's The Machine kicks Microsoft to the curb in favor of Linux - TechRepublic (fwd)

D. Hugh Redelmeier hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org
Mon Jun 23 04:04:06 UTC 2014


This didn't go through for some reason.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>
To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 11:47:24 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [TLUG]: HP's The Machine kicks Microsoft to the curb in favor of
    Linux - TechRepublic

| From: William Muriithi <william.muriithi-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| > The Itanium, which everyone now reviles, started as an HP project.  I
| > actually give them credit for that one, up to a point.  It was an
| > interesting technology.  Sadly, its biggest accomplishment was to
| > kill or weaken all RISC architectures in the marketplace.
| 
| In my opinion, seemed like they were only interested in forcing a more
| expensive CPU to the market. Though it was an interesting technology, it
| never did better in performance against x86/x86-64.  Was petty ambitious
| that they expected it to sell even after pricing it horribly against x86.

You need to break down "they".  HP's goals and Intel's goals appeared
to be different.  And goals evolved.

In the beginning, it was an HP project to replace their PA-RISC
architecture with a big new idea: VLIW.  They decided that they could
not do the whole job, including fabrication, and partnered with Intel.
Intel was always #1 in process engineering (making silicon fast).

Intel appeared to have a different goals: to (eventually) replace x86
with something in which they could keep out other suppliers (AMD,
NatSemi, ...).  And to have a seriously performant entry in the
workstation and server races.

Besides, x86 was crufty.  Extending an architecture too many times is
difficult.  The rule of thumb is that you can do it once well (see
Bell and Newell).  8008 -> 8080 -> 8086 -> 80286 -> i386 was already
pushing it.

Worse was the historical baggage from the IPM PC and PC/AT.  Remember,
EFI came out of the Itanium project.  Look how long it has taken to
land.

I have a lot of respect for some amazing folks who worked on Itanium
in the early days (Muchnick (HP), Fisher (ex-Multiflow), Rau
(ex-Cydrome), etc).  Compiler technology was crucial.

Many ambitious projects fail.  Some have the goalposts adjusted.
Failing fast is often a blessing.  The Itanium has suffered from an
extremely long failure -- 20+ years!
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