From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Aug 27 15:17: 4 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from xylan.com (postal.xylan.com [208.8.0.248]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CC78B155CA; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 15:16:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from mailhub.xylan.com by xylan.com (8.8.7/SMI-SVR4 (xylan-mgw 2.2 [OUT])) id PAA20356; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 15:13:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from utah.XYLAN.COM by mailhub.xylan.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (mailhub 2.1 [HUB])) id PAA07939; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 15:05:13 -0700 Received: from softweyr.com by utah.XYLAN.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (xylan utah [SPOOL])) id QAA06221; Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:13:06 -0600 Message-ID: <37C70D71.73B0A52F@softweyr.com> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:13:05 -0600 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.1-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jay West Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Intel Merced FreeBSD??? Intel? - NOT References: <000e01bef08b$3d606340$d402a8c0@ws2.tse.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Jay West wrote: > > Keep in mind that the merced chip was not really designed or created by > Intel at all. No, you're confusing terms here. Merced is a particular chip, like Tillamook is a specific Pentium. HP designed the 64-bit architecture in the Merced, what will become the "IA64", but Intel designed the Merced chip. > It was created almost completely by HP (by the same group responsible for > PA-RISC), with Intel as merely the production facilities. For obvious > marketing, competitive, and resource reasons both HP and Intel share the > rights to merced. > > As a matter of fact, the standard version of merced includes the PA-RISC > engine along with an x86 instruction decoder. It is, in fact, the x86 compatibility mode that has delayed Merced for SO many years. HP actually had the 64-bit sort-of-long-instruction word architecture working when Intel joined in. To say they're bitter about the decision now is to understate the case considerably; Merced will ship with approximately the same performance HP predicted for the original chip in 95 or 96. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://softweyr.com/ wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message