Sun selling X86 is still a response to the market dominance of the X86. That's also the reason they ported Solaris to the X86. There is so much competition in the X86 market, that thing are really cheap. It takes more that a CPU to make a computer. They may not be concerned about running Windows app (for a time, I had an SGI X86 PC that did run windows) but there are plenty of peripheral that run on the X86. Your SCSI card or fancy new video card use X86 bios code. Plug one into the PCI bus of a sparc, and you wont get far. The PCI card bios can be redone, but that's expensive and you will loose the advantages of commodity goods. (if you make a lot of the same thing, you can do it cheap) Plus the PCI card vendors support costs go way up. Same goes for your support chips. A VIA chipset is much cheaper than anything you'll find for a sparc. As for not selling cheap Linux/sparc boxen, that's likely a marketing decision. Sparc hardware isn't cheap and the people who buy it know that. If you by a sparc, it's likely because you HAVE to have a sparc. The additional cost of the Solaris OS isn't going to stop you. I'm just guessing, but support chipsets may be the reason the dragon in using an Alpha core. Way back when, Intel tried to muscle AMD out but making the bus interface proprietary. Before that, AMD made a dropin replacement for an Intel CPU. (same motherboard) They were hoping that AMD wouldn't be able to get anyone else to make a new chipset and motherboard just to support a second tier company. AMD's response was to adopt Digitals Alpha interface. I remember seeing AMD motherboards with Digital support chip. For a while, they promised us that we could use the same motherboard with ether a AMD X86 or an Alpha simply by changing the bios chip. There are many companies making support chips for the AMD now, maybe China is hoping to use them on their new dragon Alpha. The Alpha is a great architecture, much better than X86. If they can get their dragon running at a respectable speed, and build a motherboard (using chipset built for the AMD) for a reasonable price, I'd sure like to buy one.
dave -----Original Message----- From: Jon D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 12:31 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [uug] Industry standards processor Why then is Sun, of all companies, selling cheap Linux/x86 boxen instead of cheap Linux/Sparc boxen? Why isn't Sun fostering cheap imitations so that Sparc will be the commodity chip? Why is China's dragon processor based off of the (AFAIK) non-free Alpha proc instead of the freely-available Sparc standard? They're not really bound by these two x86 constraints. -Jon D. --- "Tucker, David" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Installed user base and backwards compatibility. > That's the only reason > people put up with the arcane PC/X86 architecture. > Other industries that > are not a bound by these concerns, often see the X86 > as overpriced, > inefficient and power hungry. You won't find many > cable set-top boxes with > an X86 processor. (Just as you wont find may > running a Micro$oft OS) > > Dave > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jon D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 11:42 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [uug] Industry standards processor > > > I just read this good article "Will the real chip > standard please stand up?" [1] > In a nutshell it states that Intel would have > everyone > believe that x86 is /the/ industry standards chip, > but > the author argues that, while it's the pervasive > commodity, it's quite proprietary. He goes on to > say > that the Sparc architecture is a free standard > according to IEEE (IEEE 1754-1994). There are 32 > bit > and 64 bit standards available. My favorite line: > "Theoretically, you could download any of the specs, > build a chip, put it in a box, and sell it as a > system > without paying anyone a dime." > > This begs the question, why aren't there more chip > makers building off this excellent standard? > Any other thoughts in the uug about this topic? > > -Jon D. > > > [1] > http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2911230,00.html > > > > > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more > http://taxes.yahoo.com/ > > ____________________ > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: > http://phantom.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list > > ____________________ > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: http://phantom.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://phantom.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://phantom.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
