4 ms·

"For example, the once-popular DEC VAX, DEC Alpha, and Sun SPARC ISAs are extinct." Extinct is a bit harsh. SPARC V8 is alive and kicking in the space industry

by vodou 4y ago

"For example, the once-popular DEC VAX, DEC Alpha, and Sun SPARC ISAs are extinct." Extinct is a bit harsh. SPARC V8 is alive and kicking in the space industry as the LEON processor models. Not the most performant CPU, but good enough for a lot of applications.

rwmj 4y ago
It would imprudent to base a whole new business on the SPARC ISA (if that's even possible - would Oracle license it?), unless you were in some niche like the space industry where interoperability is important. And David is quite right that the Digital architectures are really extinct. [Now I wonder if Compaq would open source the IP of Alpha. I think they licensed a lot of it to Intel so sadly they probably still make a bit of money from patents there.]
- opencl 4y ago
  SPARC has been "open" for several decades at this point. All of the ISA specifications are freely available[1] and you can buy a license to manufacture SPARC hardware for $99. [1] https://sparc.org/technical-documents/ https://sparc.org/technical-documents/
- kragen 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha says compaq sold "all Alpha intellectual property" to intel in 02001, so probably they haven't made any money from it since then also though any us patent filed since 01995 expires 20 years after filing, so any us αxp patents filed in the period 01995–02001 have expired already, and us patents filed before 01995 expire 17 years after issuance, so we only have to worry about pre-01995 us patents if first dec and then compaq and intel managed to delay their issuance, lemelson-style, until 02005 or later, which seems extremely unlikely so αxp is almost certainly already open-source as an isa dec's implementations are i suppose not open-source though, and casual glancing around on opencores and the like doesn't turn up any obvious candidates
jabl 4y ago
The people behind LEON have a next generation family of cores NOEL which are RISV-V based. For the time being they are still selling LEON but I'd expect it to be obsoleted at some point.
- sitkack 4y ago
  This is really cool! https://www.gaisler.com/index.php/products/processors/noel-v https://www.gaisler.com/index.php/products/processors/noel-v

by vodou 4y ago

rwmj 4y ago

It would imprudent to base a whole new business on the SPARC ISA (if that's even possible - would Oracle license it?), unless you were in some niche like the space industry where interoperability is important. And David is quite right that the Digital architectures are really extinct. [Now I wonder if Compaq would open source the IP of Alpha. I think they licensed a lot of it to Intel so sadly they probably still make a bit of money from patents there.]

opencl 4y ago
SPARC has been "open" for several decades at this point. All of the ISA specifications are freely available[1] and you can buy a license to manufacture SPARC hardware for $99. [1] https://sparc.org/technical-documents/ https://sparc.org/technical-documents/
kragen 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha says compaq sold "all Alpha intellectual property" to intel in 02001, so probably they haven't made any money from it since then also though any us patent filed since 01995 expires 20 years after filing, so any us αxp patents filed in the period 01995–02001 have expired already, and us patents filed before 01995 expire 17 years after issuance, so we only have to worry about pre-01995 us patents if first dec and then compaq and intel managed to delay their issuance, lemelson-style, until 02005 or later, which seems extremely unlikely so αxp is almost certainly already open-source as an isa dec's implementations are i suppose not open-source though, and casual glancing around on opencores and the like doesn't turn up any obvious candidates

jabl 4y ago

The people behind LEON have a next generation family of cores NOEL which are RISV-V based. For the time being they are still selling LEON but I'd expect it to be obsoleted at some point.

sitkack 4y ago
This is really cool! https://www.gaisler.com/index.php/products/processors/noel-v https://www.gaisler.com/index.php/products/processors/noel-v