Re: OT: Sparc not dead yet

JF Mezei wrote:
Bill Gunshannon wrote:

Actually, JF, you seem to have (coveniently) forgotten that the
exact opposite happened. Sun dumped x86 Solaris. But, being
responsive to their customers (current and potential), unlike
another company we all know who will remain nameless, they revived
it by popular demand.


I have not forgotten this. However, what was revived was the legacy 32
bit version of 8086 solaris.

I seem to recall that that occured before Opteron was available. Might be wrong. But if I'm right, what else could there be but 32 bit x86?

It is only later on that Sun teamed up with AMD to make 64 bit 8086
machines, now that the 8086 had gained 64 bit respectability. And as I
recall (I may be wrong), at that time, Sun also dumped 32 bit support
for future Solaris version.



And if the Vulcans arrive bringing us quantum computing and
positronic technology , we'll all be out of work.

No, we'll learn and adapt. After learning to adapt to the loss of Alpha, anything else should be easy.

Maybe they'll take billy boy back home with them. :-)

We could sell VMS to the Vulcans... It would be the logical thing to do
:-) (Although Vulcans are probably not very good at markleting, a purely
emotional thing).


Sun has already demonstrated that they are still customer driven. I don't expect
to see Sparc go away until Sun's customers no longer want it,


Neother do I. But if the market and the 8086 develops to a point that
the 8086 can take on the vast majority of configurations now done only
in Sparc, and the 8086 is cheaper, then Sun will also be responsive to
cutsomer demands for lower priced systems.

Sparc competes against power and 8086. Both Sparc and Power are
essentially proprietary chips without competition within the
architectures. (yes, I know sparc has multiple sources, but do they
really *compete* ? )

What you're ignoring is that AMD at least doesn't give a rat's ass about the top end. The desktop (say volumn) is just getting to dual core, and the majority of servers is in the 4-8 core size. That's where the volume is. Volume is where the money is at.

There are needs at the top end, and there are tools, and those tools cost appropriately. But it's a pyramid, with capability and cost rising as you go up the pyramid. But the base is really much bigger than the point at the top. That's why Intel is what they are. Their fortunes have been made at the bottom, and only when that was threatened did they get serious.

Power and Sparc will continue to have their uses, and cost accordingly.

The only thing that tried to counter this rather reasonable usage is the itanic. Intel's ego (fueled by success at the bottom end) caused them to think they could dominate the same way at the top end. Plenty of money down the bottomless pit didn't really change their minds. It took Opteron to do that. Unfortunately a few fools who didn't know and understand the business they were in caused the loss of Alpha.

The 8086 has true competition between Intel and AMD and this competition
is forcing prices down as well as forcing features/speeds up. And the
high volumes allow both to spend more money on R&D and assign more
resources to ensure they are first to market (or just weeks late, not
years late as is the case for IA64).

And they'll spend it where the money is, can you say volume and low end?

Sparc has many features which are years ahead of IA64 (such as 8 cores
today, something that IA64 won't have for many many many years, if
ever). So it will take longer for the 8086 to reach Sparc's level,
versus 8086 surpassing IA64. But it may still happen eventually.

What makes anyone think IBM and Sun will be standing still waiting for this to occur? Only idiots such as curly and carly.

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. Fax: 724-529-0596
DFE Ultralights, Inc. E-Mail: davef@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Vanderbilt, PA 15486
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