Re: DEC

I'm not a real doofus, but I play one at a national laboratory. (BAISLEY@fndcd.fnal.gov)
Fri, 14 Mar 1997 13:40:39 -0600


Someone named CobraBoy came up with this a while back:

> I believe it just means "multi" as in sMp

Not bloody likely, as JB (SC) once said. Since we already have 64 bit Alphas
with 12-way SMP, that wouldn't make too much sense. I think they're talking
about a real-live 128 bit processor. I did find this Shannonism via A/V:

> >
> > Terry C. Shannon (shannon@world.std.com) wrote:
> > : WNT is 128-bit? Cool. That means it'll work just fine with DIGITAL's
> > : next-generation 128-bit MRISC architecture...
> >
> > Interesting. Wasn't the Alpha s'posed to be the end-all be-all architecture
> > from DEC? =) I remember reading in the ALPHA architecture handbook that
> > the ALPHA architecture was going to be the focus of DEC for the next 20 years...
> > Ah well. Any pointers to info on this prospective architecture?
> >
>
> Alpha quite likely will be the focus for the next 20 years. MRISC is a
> 128b architecture designed about half a decade ago by the DEC Semi
> folks. The intended application was image processing. The project was
> cancelled because of potential conflict with Alpha (or at least the
> Alpha marketing message) and anticipated low sales volumes.
>
> Beyond that, I don't know much. Except that DECfolk get real quiet
> whenever MRISC is mentioned in their presence!

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they have one of these in a lab somewhere,
but they'll just sit on it until a market develops for such a beast, if ever.

Cheers,
Wayne

http://altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&what=news&fmt=&q=mrisc

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Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen.
He's already got one, you see?

[Stunned] Are you sure he's got one?

Oh yes. It's very nice.