Scheme compilers (fwd)

[Jordan Henderson]

On Fri, 11 Sep 1998, Mark Dulcey wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Sep 1998, Mike McDonald wrote:
> 
> > >Speaking of things for the remnants of Symbolics to do: they should
> > >consider putting OpenGenera (the port to the Alpha) back on the market at
> > >a more reasonable price (perhaps one with three digits rather than five).
> > >Not the same thing as a free OS, but it would still be something good to
> > >have in the world.
> > 
> >   I think the whole future of the OpenGenera product is in trouble
> > with DEC going out of business. I think supplies of Alphas running OSF
> > are going to become quite scarce. I doubt there'd be many new
> > customers signing up for that combo, except maybe a few existing ones
> > who are moving up from XLs or 36XXs.
> > 
> >   There doesn't seem to be any attractive alternatives
> > either. SGI/MIPS is essentially history. Same for PARISCs. Maybe a
> > port to Sun Ultras is the way to go? (I wouldn't mind a Pentium port,
> > even if it ended up running slower than the Alpha version.)
> 
> How about a port to Alpha/Linux? There are inexpensive Alpha systems out
> there, and it should be an easy port - no need to change any of the core
> emulation code. Plus it eliminates the need for that expensive Digital
> Unix license, not to mention the fact that the low-end Alpha systems don't
> run Digital Unix (they lack the right microcode or some such thing).
> 
> Longer-term, a port to SPARC might work well - those Ultra 5s are pretty
> cheap now. (The base system is down to $2400; fully configured with enough
> RAM and a good 21-inch monitor, it should still be under $5K.) A Pentium
> port would be tough to get to perform acceptably, because you're emulating
> an architecture with larger-than-32-bit pointers. IA-64 would be a
> possibility down the road (assuming it ever actually works, and doesn't
> turn out to be another iAPX432), but not yet.
> 
> 

I think you'll find that Alphas running OSF (rebranded DEC UNIX several
years ago) will be quite available and possibly even more affordable
now that Compaq and DEC have merged.

Compaq is 100% committed to the Alpha 
(see http://www.alphapowered.com/api_frameset.htm) and to DEC UNIX on
the Alpha (see http://www.digital.com/flash/f237/).  I have seen 
product briefings where Compaq has stated their intent to bring out
new Alphas for the foreseeable future running DEC UNIX.

In case you haven't noticed, there are a lot of questions about
Windows NT as an enterprise-ready platform.  The various UNIX's
hold all the benchmarksrecords in whatever application test you
care to make.  It is Compaq's intention to go after the big data
shop business with their acquisition of DEC and Tandem.  Why 
would they abandon the operating system that will probably be
used in high performance, transaction processing environments for
some time to come?

-Jordan Henderson
jordan@neosoft.com