> All computer architecture PhDs I've spoken to have referred to the Itanium with an air of awe. Really? I've had pretty much exactly the opposite experience.

> All computer architecture PhDs I've spoken to have referred to the Itanium with an air of awe. Really? I've had pretty much exactly the opposite experience. In computer architecture circles I find it's actually more often referred to as "Itanic" than "Itanium", if that's any indicator. I think what's probably most sad about the Itanium debacle is that it brought about the end of Alpha, PA-RISC, and (non-embedded) MIPS, and all apparently for naught. A slight aside: it doesn't really say much about it's technical merits one way or another, but Wikipedia has a pretty amazing chart of predicted vs. actual sales figures for Itani{c,um} over time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Itanium_Sales_Forecasts_edit.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Itanium_Sales_Forecasts_ed... (you can just see it falling on its face over the course of a decade).