maddog: Letter to InfoWorld: Linux 64-bit since 1995!

Bill McGonigle bill at bfccomputing.com
Sat Jan 7 22:39:00 EST 2006


On Jan 6, 2006, at 21:05, Jon maddog Hall wrote:

> NT was originally supposed to run on the MIPS, Alpha and Intel chips, 
> all
> capable of little endian format.  MIPS was more or less still-born, 
> and I do
> not belive NT ever was officially released for it.

Just to be pedantic, it was released - here's a disc I have:

   
http://bfccomputing.com/downloads/docs/windows/nt4/cd/picture/nt4cd.jpg

Whether anyone ever ran it or not (or if it even worked) is a different 
question.  SGI was going to reinvent the company by getting into bed 
with Microsoft.  We all know how that limerick ends.

I was all gung-ho for NT 4 on Alpha, even if it only ran in 32-bit 
mode, having used Alphas (on OSF/1) to do graphics work in a grad class 
at Dartmouth (bitchin' fast).  The FX!32 Kool-Aid Compaq (nee DEC) was 
selling sounded great.

Then Microsoft told the hardware shops (Motorola, DEC I presume, not 
Intel) that they had to take on the burden of development for their 
chips and allowed the manufacturers to kill the products (see, 
Microsoft didn't do it...).  64-bit NT on Alpha was supposed to debut 
in NT 5, IIRC, so it's fair to say it never made the light of day, even 
if it were in the shop.

Oh, and given the amount of work it took me to port POV-Ray to Alpha 
(32-bit pointer assumptions everywhere) I can see why Microsoft wasn't 
chomping at that particular bit.

-Bill
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