On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 10:07:24PM -0600, mbutler2 at mmm.com wrote: > I also see Sun keeping Sparc, it wouldn't make much monetary sense to > just can that architecture, especially for an arch that most of Sun seems > to see as substandard. I agree there. Sun will keep Sparc going; as much because they're at odds with the WinTel world, as anything. (Star Office was made free, to be a kick in MS'es shorts; a hard crack at the WinTel monopoly). > I also see SGI keeping MIPS, I hope they do; it's a good architecture (far more mature than IA64). They'll also keep it around for the IRIX users who won't let go (the gov't). IRIX would never survive on anything but MIPS; and to keep IRIX alive, and provide really big machines for it to work on (since nothing will scale as well as IRIX in the near future), they'll probably keep MIPS. > So, I see the archs hanging around for quite some time, and if for no > other reason than they do certain things very well and their OSes run best > on them. There is no plan to take IRIX to Intel, they will prolly look at > 64-bit linux, but that's about it, and it may or may not be the flagship. > I don't see Sun using Intel outside of trying to attract new laptop > customers into the OS, at which they do a poor job... there aren't enough device drivers written for Solaris/x86. to the point that I know someone who carries a USB keyboard around (one of the flexible rubber ones you can roll up and stuff away); because there isn't a Solaris 8 device driver for his Dell laptop's keyboard (tho it worked in Solaris 7). > Getting people to build boxes around a chip is nowhere near as tough > -- I think that could be done. But big money has big inertia. HP > killed off PA-RISC to deal with the Compaq merger, and Alpha's gone too. I think the independent open-hardware CPU projects are going to be novelties for quite a long time to come... but that doesn't mean they're useless efforts. they may serve in niche markets. maybe they'll become prevalent when the machines take over and get rid of us squabbling humans. :) Carl Soderstrom -- Network Engineer Real-Time Enterprises (952) 943-8700