Re: What is the performance of iVMS ?

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_istop.com)
Date: 10/15/03


Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 23:22:29 -0400

David Froble wrote:
> was/is one of those environments. I remember a discussion from many years ago
> where there was speculation that PALcode might be able to implement the x86
> instruction set.

During a decus-lug meeting in montreal a long long long time ago, we had a
presentation of the then soon-to-arrive alpha chip. There were some Andersen
consultants in the room (who would normally never attend Digital related
presentations). The emulation of instructiosn by pal code was discussed by the
presenter. During question period, I blatantly asked if it would be possible
for alpha to emulate AS400 instruction set with just a new set of pal code. He
answered that theoretically yes. You should have seen the faces of those
Andersen consultants. (I was seated next to a decie who pointed those
consultant to me and how they were involved in As400 sales).

AS400 may have been the "VAX killer", but Alpha could have been the AS400
killer. IBM is probably happy Digital was so inept at marketing.



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