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Itanic was hype from the word go. Intel tried and failed twice to make "VLIW CPUs that rely on 'sufficiently smart' HLL compilers doing the right instruction pa
by bitwize 3y ago
Itanic was hype from the word go. Intel tried and failed twice to make "VLIW CPUs that rely on 'sufficiently smart' HLL compilers doing the right instruction packings" a thing before Itanium came along (iAPX 432 and i860). I think someone very high up at Intel was in love with the idea despite its repeated failures.
Alpha was clearly the future -- and Itanic ruined Alpha. We didn't even get to see it live on inside some other corporate sarlacc.
- BirAdam 3y agoWell, zero speculation would have saved from all of the exploits over the years… so there’s that.
- fulafel 3y agoI hadn't heard about compiler vs 432 before, any links?
- p_l 3y agoI do recall some discussion about combination of really bad code generation combined with some ridiculously bad design decisions (I think it might have been total lack of cache?)
- tjalfi 3y agoThe blog entry Revisiting the Intel 432[0] and the cited paper Performance Effects of Architectural Complexity in the Intel 432[1] discuss the compiler issues. [0] https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2008/07/18/revisiting-the-intel-432/ https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2008/07/18/revisiting-the-intel... [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/45059.214411 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/45059.214411
- bitwize 3y agoAll I know is the Wikipedia article references a crappy Ada compiler whose lack of optimization made it run slower than a 286: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432