> Not quite. It's a firmware job.

It's a full port. They will make use of IA64 capabilities
as and where appropriate. There is no equivalent to Alpha's
PAL so they won't be changing the chip's personality to
look like Alpha or anything like that.

> They say that what made the Alpha good, is in the IA-64 platform. 

Well Bob Palmer did sue Intel, alleging that they had ripped off
Alpha secrets; but those secrets were supposed to have been used
in the Pentium range. Intel did buy the Alpha designers, but by
the time they got there, IA64 had been cast in stone. I guess
they'll be able to influence the next generation of the chip,
but even then, it will be a better IA64 not an IA64 with
Alpha features.

Antonio 

 
-- 

---------------
Antonio Carlini             arcarlini@iee.org
 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: port-vax-owner@netbsd.org [mailto:port-vax-owner@netbsd.org]
> On Behalf
> > Of John Klos
> > Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 10:21 PM
> > To: port-vax@netbsd.org
> > Subject: VMS on Itanic
> > 
> > Slightly off topic...
> > 
> > I wonder if they're going to emulate Alpha on Itanic...
> > 
> > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/28960.html
>