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> Computers didn’t exceed 64 logical processors per system until around 2014. Server systems were available with that since at least the late 90s. Server syste

by arp242 1y ago

> Computers didn’t exceed 64 logical processors per system until around 2014. Server systems were available with that since at least the late 90s. Server systems with >10 CPUs were already available in the mid-90s. By the early-to-mid 90s it was pretty obvious that was only going to increase and that the 64-CPU limit was going to be a problem down the line. That said, development of NT started in 1988, and it may have been less obvious then.

p_ing 1y ago
"Server systems" but not server systems that Microsoft targeted. NT4 Enterprise Server (1996) only supported up to 8 sockets (some companies wrote their own HAL to exceed that limit). And 8 sockets was 8 threads with no NUMA back then, not something that would have been an issue for the purposes of this discussion.
- monocasa 1y ago
  Microsoft was absolutely wanting to target large servers at the time. They were actively trying to kill off the vendor unices in the 90s.
  - p_ing 1y ago
    They successfully killed off vendor unicies in the 90s, but that was thanks to cheap x86.
    - monocasa 1y ago
      That was what stuck, but supporting the big servers was also part of their multifaceted strategy. That's why the alpha, itanium, powerpc, and mips ports existed.