4 ms·
While it might sound contrarian, Alpha actually deserved to die. It guzzled power. This was the biggest problem, not solvable in its lifetime with its resource
by chasil 3y ago
While it might sound contrarian, Alpha actually deserved to die.
It guzzled power. This was the biggest problem, not solvable in its lifetime with its resources.
"According to Allen Baum, the StrongARM traces its history to attempts to make a low-power version of the DEC Alpha, which DEC's engineers quickly concluded was not possible."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StrongARM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StrongARM
- djbusby 3y agoBack in the NT4 days, which supported Alpha, my lab had a few of their boxes. Dual 500Mhz (it was ~1998) Huge box with a huge PSU. And we had some cheapo desktop HPs with dual Pentium2(3? (the card edge ones)) at like 450 or 533. Which basically ran circles and sipped power by comparison. Don't remember the exact numbers but only 2 per 15A circuit; with 4 of the x86 per.
- akuma73 3y agoA lot of ex-Alpha engineers went to PA-Semi which Apple then acquired. Those people are responsible for the epic custom Apple ARM CPUs.
- chasil 3y agoLike I said, DEC also did StrongARM, which probably gave designers in many areas a new perspective.
- deaddodo 3y agoA lot of the Alpha engineers (including Keller) went to AMD and made the Athlon. The Athlon (K7/K8, specifically) was/is considered the spiritual successor to the 21264, by many. But yeah, many ended up looping around to PA Semi (again, including Keller).