Why are still not at 64 bits and a bit of Linux History

Jon 'maddog' Hall maddog at li.org
Thu Feb 15 16:56:15 EST 2007


On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 15:43 -0500, Thomas Charron wrote:
> On 2/15/07, Tom Buskey <tom at buskey.name> wrote:
> > On 2/15/07, Ben Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >   So, Microsoft doesn't "support" a 64-bit address space, even today,
> > > in Vista.  Hey, it's only been like, what, 14 years since the Alpha
> > > came out?  Don't rush them...
> >  64 bit OSen:
> > Alpha OSF/1 1993
> > SGI Irix 6.0 in 1994
> > Alpha OpenVMS 1995
> >  Sun Solaris 2.7 in 1995
> > AS/400 1995
> > Nintendo 64 1996
> > IBM z/OS 2000
> > Xbox 360 2005
> 
>   OMG, no Linux!  :-)  TRAITOR!  :-D
> 
I actually thought that VMS was 64-bit right from the get-go on Alpha
(1993), but I could be wrong on that....

Alpha Linux was 64-bit in November of 1995.

Timeline:

May, 1994 - Met Linus Torvalds at DECUS in New Orleans after funding his
trip to speak on Lyenooks.  Saw Leenooks for the first time.*
Instantly fell in love.  Suggested to Linus while on board the Nachez
Riverboat that a port to the Alpha would be "interesting".   64-bit, and
get rid of the "Intelisms".  He told me that he wanted to do that, but
the Helsinki office of Digital was having problems getting an Alpha, and
that he "might have to do the PowerPC instead."  I do not remember
screaming, but I do remember dropping my drink on the deck of the boat.

I told him not to do anything foolish (such as support the PowerPC), but
to give me a week.

May 1994 + 1 week - Alpha processor was on the way to Finland***

June 1994 - Linus signed "Loan of Products (LOP) form" while at
conference in Boston.  "Will I ever have to return this?" he asked,
while holding a hot dog.  I assured him that no "loan of products thing"
that Digital sent out was ever returned.  His system never was.**

June, 1994 - Helsinki office of Digital released Alpha processor to
Linus after receiving "LOP" and paying almost as much duty as the
processor was worth.  ("Why are you complaining, I paid the shipping,"
said maddog.)

June 1994 and three weeks: PowerPC shows up at Linus' house.  Linus does
not turn it on for few years.  Finally turns it on so he can tell IBM
that he did.  By this time he is committed to Alpha processor, and
throughout the life of the project he stated several times how he liked
it so much.   This is without any prompting from DEC.

June-December, 1994 - Linus studied Alpha documentation while bringing
out next version of kernel, planning the strategy for source tree.

Maddog found the Alpha technology group in Hudson who were also trying
to create a Linux "project" albeit a 32-bit port.  Maddog showed them
why this was wrong and un-necessary, and they switched to 64-bit port.

January, 1994 - Linus started project in earnest

November, 1994 - Red Hat released an Alpha Linux distribution.  Maddog
talks them into a joint project of putting out an "Alpha" distribution
that ran on Intel, so he could spread them like Johnny Appleseed
throughout the world.  "If you like this, you will like the Alpha
version better," was the story told.  And it was true.

Sometime after that Linus visits Durham, New Hampshire for what was the
largest GNHLUG meeting ever.  We gave away signed copies of the
Red Hat/Alpha celebration CD, some of which I still have.

Warmest regards,

maddog

*Actually it was the second time I saw it.  I first ordered "A Unix
Operating System with all its source code" from a small company called
Yggdrasil in March of 1994.  I could not run it, since I did not own a
PC.  I did mount the CD-ROM on my Ultrix system and look at the man
pages though.  I remember thinking that "This might be interesting"
before putting it back in my filing cabinet.  I still have that today.

**Later in 1995 David Mossberger-Tang, a pretty brilliant Linux
programmer, also received an LOP system to do work on the Linux
Libraries.  Ten years later he called me to tell me that he wanted to
return the system.  It turns out that David was working for HP on the
porting of Linux to the Itanium.  I told him to just give the system to
his boss at HP, since it was already "returned".  To my knowledge, this
was the only LOP thing ever "returned".

***The story of this sales job is a talk it itself



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