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Yeah - I had high hopes for the alpha as well. I think it had more to do with Dec not getting price competitive with x86 before x86_64 took off. I don't really

Yeah - I had high hopes for the alpha as well. I think it had more to do with Dec not getting price competitive with x86 before x86_64 took off. I don't really think the Itanium factored into it - it always seemed more of an 'also ran' then a real threat. I think I might still have some Dec Multia's with Alpha 166MHgz out in the garage somewher. Neat lil boxes.

bitwize 6y ago
When Compaq bought out DEC they shuttered all Alpha development in favor of Itanium. Continuing to develop a competing ISA would put them in a bad place as an Intel customer. All this happened before x86_64 was a thing.
- p_l 6y ago
  The way it was done was so abrupt that Windows 2000 nearly released with Alpha version on standard CD (which would be AFAIK 64bit clean, unlike the older ones), but essentially the whole NT/alpha team (which was part of Compaq) was told close to RTM release "sorry, your project was closed". Later, Compaq had to restart production, and HP even had to introduce updated chip, because some customers, especially VMS, didn't want to move to slower Itanium machines. I have even heard that part of Itanium's flop was how often older EV6 machines were running circles around new Itanium ones...
tyingq 6y ago
"I don't really think the Itanium factored into it" There's a sibling comment that mentions Compaq putting in the final nail. But, my impression was that more customers might have switched to Alpha servers (from HP-UX, Solaris, etc) if they didn't think Itanium was going to win the market. It also gave more credibility to x86-64 by sort of confirming that old-school RISC was dying. Itanium did end up with a heavy stigma, but there was a time when many thought it would be the future.
- lsllc 6y ago
  There's some interesting discussion of the ultimate demise of the Alpha here: http://alasir.com/articles/alpha_history/compaq_epoch.html http://alasir.com/articles/alpha_history/compaq_epoch.html

bitwize 6y ago

When Compaq bought out DEC they shuttered all Alpha development in favor of Itanium. Continuing to develop a competing ISA would put them in a bad place as an Intel customer. All this happened before x86_64 was a thing.

p_l 6y ago
The way it was done was so abrupt that Windows 2000 nearly released with Alpha version on standard CD (which would be AFAIK 64bit clean, unlike the older ones), but essentially the whole NT/alpha team (which was part of Compaq) was told close to RTM release "sorry, your project was closed". Later, Compaq had to restart production, and HP even had to introduce updated chip, because some customers, especially VMS, didn't want to move to slower Itanium machines. I have even heard that part of Itanium's flop was how often older EV6 machines were running circles around new Itanium ones...

tyingq 6y ago

"I don't really think the Itanium factored into it" There's a sibling comment that mentions Compaq putting in the final nail. But, my impression was that more customers might have switched to Alpha servers (from HP-UX, Solaris, etc) if they didn't think Itanium was going to win the market. It also gave more credibility to x86-64 by sort of confirming that old-school RISC was dying. Itanium did end up with a heavy stigma, but there was a time when many thought it would be the future.

lsllc 6y ago
There's some interesting discussion of the ultimate demise of the Alpha here: http://alasir.com/articles/alpha_history/compaq_epoch.html http://alasir.com/articles/alpha_history/compaq_epoch.html