As for SPARC, Oracle does seem to have invested heavily, in part because of the elaborate self-delusion that Ellison seemed to have that he could develop magica

As for SPARC, Oracle does seem to have invested heavily, in part because of the elaborate self-delusion that Ellison seemed to have that he could develop magical database hardware that would somehow repeal the laws of physics. Any idea what (if any) the academic or other foundations of this delusion were & how far Oracle got before cutting their losses? Rock seems to have been suffocated before the ink on the acquisition was dry so I'm assuming that's not it. I love reading about the dead-end roads of computer engineering, especially those that had a few gigadollars driven down them.