🚀 go-pugleaf

|>
|>Can someone give me a short (<100 lines) discription of the DEC alpha
|>workstations, including when they will be out, what their current level
|>of performance is, operating systems (VMS vs OS1), compatibility with 
|>previous VAX and DECstation hardware, and if possible, whether or not
|>these beasts should be able to run a previously compiled (under VMS)
|>program and, if so, what difference in speed should be seen?

Doug, some of what you ask is not yet public knowledge given that we have not
yet released these systems.  However, I can tell you some of the things that
we have said and shown in public

There are currently two alpha workstations, desktop and deskside.  These systems
have both been shown at Siggraph and will be shown at Unix Expo in September.

All alpha machines will run both VMS and OSF/1 and will have some levels of 
compatibility with prior generations.  However, this is not binary compatiblity
and something must be "done" in order to acheive this compatibility.  On both
DEC OSF/1 and VMS, we will provide "binary translators" that take executable
images from  say MIPS/ULTRIX and translate them into executables for Alpha/OSF
There is a performance loss, mainly from  not taking advantage of the alpha
architecture, however our stated goals is that we will be able to run translated
code on an alpha machine faster than that of the most recently available 
VAX or MIPS based system from DEC.

There is no performance information available in the public as of yet, and we
have stated that we will deliver Alpha systems by the end of the calendar year,
however I cannot give you more detail in a public forum than that.  
|>
|>Alternatively, point me to a source for this information.

Obviously, the best source for such information is your salesperson who can
give you detailed information under a non-disclosure agreement
|>
|>Second question:  Are these workstations running AVS, and if so, how well?

One of the systems at Siggraph was running AVS under VMS.  We also have it
running internally under OSF/1.  Many of the people who stopped by our booth
at Siggraph were quite impressed at the speed, especially given that we didn't 
have 3D hardware in the system.
--


William M. Jackson
Alpha Workstation Product Marketing Manager
Workstation Engineering
Digital Equipment Corporation
146 Main Street
Maynard, MA 01754

Mail:	Jackson@pravda.enet.dec.com