Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 20:45:31 -0400 From: Sergey Babkin <babkin@bellatlantic.net> To: Thomas David Rivers <rivers@dignus.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, kdrobnac@mission.mvnc.edu Subject: Re: Intel Merced FreeBSD??? Message-ID: <37C7312B.EE446A5C@bellatlantic.net> References: <199908271229.IAA35280@lakes.dignus.com>
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Thomas David Rivers wrote: > Microsoft needs a "business quality" version of Windows, > which it claims is Windows/2000. That version of Windows > could benefit from a 64-bit port, if for marketing only; but > I don't think it would result in the volume of sales Intel > is looking for. A funny thing is that Microsoft is porting essentially a 32-bit version of Windows to Merced. All the programs for Windows that want to use 64-bit support will have to be modified because the MS compiler defines both int and long as 32-bit. On the other hand the Unix compilers (at least UnixWare and as far as I understood that's the common Unix convention) provide a mode with 64-bit longs that gives certain degree of 64-bit awareness just by recompiling. > And - let me add - Intel has been down this path before > (the i860) - and didn't see the success it wanted (although > the i860 is popping up in some interesting places now...) Merced can run the x86 code. Not as fast as the native code but I guess comparable to the Pentiums. > I suppose what this "rant" is all about is that I'm not > convinced Merced is the "chip of the future" that we all > need to be worried about. I'm taking a "wait-and-see" > attitude. [Also, since Microsoft has been working > closely with Intel regarding Merced for several years > now, and has yet to do anything `serious' - I believe > they are taking the same "wait-and-see" approach. Likely > while telling Intel otherwise.] SCO and IBM with their Monterey-64 project are considering Merced quite seriously. Actually, as far as I know, for Monterey-64 the availability of the Merceds seems to be the limiting factor now. -SB To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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