> My understanding is the Alpha AXP chip has no native instruction set.  You
> specify the instruction set at boot time (a Cray design).  Thus, the Alpha AXP
> can emulate many common 32 bit processors, but is faster than the silicon
> version of said processor.

This understanding is... _AMAZINGLY_ flawed.

The alpha has a _very_ fixed instruction set.  see
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/alpha/doc-list.html#EC-QD2KA-TE
(i think that's the right manual.)

> The Viper runs either DEC OSF/1 (UNIX) or emulates an Intel 486 and runs
> Windows NT (POSIX).

It's still an Alpha when it's running NT...  last i heard, though, NT
binaries were i386 instructions, emulated (i.e. in software), just as
you can, say, emulate a m68k-based Macintosh on a sparcstation...

All of the AlphaStations from DEC can run NT, as well, btw.


As for getting one of these boxes: i've got enough to do right now
porting to the DEC PCI boxes.  I don't need to add to my workload,
especially if it's not likely that "National Computers Plus" is going
to be nearly as friendly to me as DEC has been...

a port to those boxes probably wouldn't be very hard, once the DEC PCI
boxes are supported.


cgd