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i've never seen an alpha system myself. do any of the vintage hardware folks around here have one? what were they like to use? what was good and bad? what were they good at?
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Jan 10, 2022 08:17
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i dont know.
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Jan 10, 2022 08:19
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i hope that helped, op/
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Jan 10, 2022 08:19
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Fart what the hell are you an ik of?
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Jan 10, 2022 09:03
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it's DEC's least interesting ISA but you could run Windows NT on it which was neat. it was a 64-bit RISC that they were hoping to make competitive for 20+ years but then DEC ran out of money and got bought by Compaq who promptly went all-in on Itanium (lmao) and killed Alpha off. this kind of pissed microsoft off because unlike the Itanium it was actually possible to write software for Alpha and run it on real hardware that you could just buy and plug in. in a time when ARM was all 32-bit low power designs and 64-bit POWER didn't exist yet it was a 64-bit machine that checked the RISC boxes on the wave-of-the-future checklist, was from a big name in the minicomputer world, and had a VMS port as well as DEC's own Mach and BSD derived Unix and the aforementioned Windows NT port
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Jan 10, 2022 09:24
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Armitag3 posted:Fart what the hell are you an ik of? cspam eurasia thread thanks for asking
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Jan 10, 2022 10:06
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what were Alpha systems mostly used for? high-end workstations, or servers?Kazinsal posted:it's DEC's least interesting ISA what would you say was their most interesting ISA?
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Jan 11, 2022 01:08
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hi op I don’t know anything either but I found this helpful link that should answer all your questions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha
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Jan 11, 2022 01:23
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i mean yeah but i was kinda hoping to get some first-hand stories or maybe even a cool picture from one of the yosposters who keeps old hardware around
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Jan 11, 2022 01:45
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the only crap yospos packrats keep around is also-ran commodity garbage like macs or amigas
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Jan 11, 2022 01:47
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you think yospos has ewaste hoarders? get real
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Jan 11, 2022 02:31
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if you can see my posts it means u are using ewaste.
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Jan 11, 2022 02:32
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Shaggar posted:if you can see my posts it means u are using ewaste. reading it, too
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Jan 11, 2022 02:52
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my dec is pretty alpha iykwim
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Jan 11, 2022 02:58
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anyway pretty good thread op. trying to decide what to rate it.
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Jan 11, 2022 03:06
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op, the dec alpha has a fully weak memory ordering model which requires read barriers on atomic loads of objects even if all the subsequent loads from the object are value-dependent on the loaded pointer. intriguingly, it is my understanding that the weakness of the alpha's memory ordering model is purely theoretical, and all shipping alpha hardware in fact uses a stronger model which does guarantee that dependent loads will be properly ordered. nonetheless, because this is not architecturally guaranteed, any lock-free code must ensure that it uses proper barriers around atomic loads if it is ever ported to alpha. in principle, systems programming languages such as c and c++ would allow programmers to clearly state their requirements and then compile it optimally for the given platform, potentially avoiding load barriers when compiling for systems other than the alpha. unfortunately, inventing a sound formal definition of the concept of value-dependence that still admits reasonable optimizations in code that may not even be aware of the fact that it's carrying a dependency on an atomic load has proven to be an exceptionally tricky problem. even now, a full ten years after the introduction of atomics to c and c++, many compilers do not compile the so-called "consume" memory ordering optimally. this problem would be entirely defined away if processors were instead as overtly hostile as the theoretical but not actual memory ordering model of the dec alpha, op
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Jan 11, 2022 03:18
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yeah kaz should find some amfetamines and go to town writing about ISAs
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Jan 11, 2022 03:19
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rjmccall posted:op, the dec alpha has a fully weak memory ordering model which requires read barriers on atomic loads of objects even if all the subsequent loads from the object are value-dependent on the loaded pointer. intriguingly, it is my understanding that the weakness of the alpha's memory ordering model is purely theoretical, and all shipping alpha hardware in fact uses a stronger model which does guarantee that dependent loads will be properly ordered. nonetheless, because this is not architecturally guaranteed, any lock-free code must ensure that it uses proper barriers around atomic loads if it is ever ported to alpha. in principle, systems programming languages such as c and c++ would allow programmers to clearly state their requirements and then compile it optimally for the given platform, potentially avoiding load barriers when compiling for systems other than the alpha. unfortunately, inventing a sound formal definition of the concept of value-dependence that still admits reasonable optimizations in code that may not even be aware of the fact that it's carrying a dependency on an atomic load has proven to be an exceptionally tricky problem. even now, a full ten years after the introduction of atomics to c and c++, many compilers do not compile the so-called "consume" memory ordering optimally. this problem would be entirely defined away if processors were instead as overtly hostile as the theoretical but not actual memory ordering model of the dec alpha, op i’m jealous of people who understand this poo poo maybe I should just play TIS-100 or Shenzen IO some more
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Jan 11, 2022 03:21
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rjmccall posted:op, the dec alpha has a fully weak memory ordering model which requires read barriers on atomic loads of objects even if all the subsequent loads from the object are value-dependent on the loaded pointer. intriguingly, it is my understanding that the weakness of the alpha's memory ordering model is purely theoretical, and all shipping alpha hardware in fact uses a stronger model which does guarantee that dependent loads will be properly ordered. nonetheless, because this is not architecturally guaranteed, any lock-free code must ensure that it uses proper barriers around atomic loads if it is ever ported to alpha. in principle, systems programming languages such as c and c++ would allow programmers to clearly state their requirements and then compile it optimally for the given platform, potentially avoiding load barriers when compiling for systems other than the alpha. unfortunately, inventing a sound formal definition of the concept of value-dependence that still admits reasonable optimizations in code that may not even be aware of the fact that it's carrying a dependency on an atomic load has proven to be an exceptionally tricky problem. even now, a full ten years after the introduction of atomics to c and c++, many compilers do not compile the so-called "consume" memory ordering optimally. this problem would be entirely defined away if processors were instead as overtly hostile as the theoretical but not actual memory ordering model of the dec alpha, op
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Jan 11, 2022 03:34
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a dependent load is what your dad called you!
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Jan 11, 2022 03:54
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in the late 90’s I worked at a company that had mostly linux servers. we had a big hairy c++ application that would take like 10 minutes to compile on our beefiest linux server (dual processor x86). but then we got a couple of alpha servers on loan from compaq. they had more ram than any puny intel chip could handle. they ran at something like 800 mhz, which was twice the clock speed of our fastest x86s. they ran OSF/tru64, which was not a pile of garbage like linux 2.2 (lol). our app was ported to it. it would compile in about a minute, which was a mind blowing performance difference. it made me do most of my work in the alphas even though their compiler (cxx) was very picky and annoying. in conclusion, alpha was fast and good, probably the best of the big RISC processors of the era. rip to a real one.
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Jan 11, 2022 04:47
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:what were Alpha systems mostly used for? high-end workstations, or servers? both really, the first series of Alpha hardware (DEC 3000 AXP) shipped in both workstation and server variants (indicated by a trailing S on the model number), where the differentiator was whether they included a TURBOchannel video card and were pre-set to boot to a serial console or video/keyboard/mouse console they didn’t even ship distinct manual sets, instead you’d get a manual set for “DEC AXP 3000 Model 400/400S” (this is what I have) Alpha was the first CPU to push speeds into the hundreds of MHz a couple years before its competitors, though that didn’t necessarily translate to that much of a performance advantage given the simplicity of its instructions even relative to other RISC systems Alpha also supported very large memory on workstations for the time, which is why the first ones I saw were being used for things like computational chemistry; I have a model 400 in the maximum configuration at 512MB, while the floorstanding 500 (introduced at the same time) supports up to 1GB
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Jan 11, 2022 04:54
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:i've never seen an alpha system myself. do any of the vintage hardware folks around here have one? what were they like to use? what was good and bad? what were they good at? I have several, though not a lot of pics here’s my DEC 3000 AXP Model 400, from the first series of Alpha workstations and servers, booted into OpenVMS 7.1 as a workstation  I also have a couple of AlphaStation systems, an AlphaServer 1000A, and an adorable little AlphaServer DS10e which I finally got a video card for so it can be used as a workstation as for what they were like to use, they were “just” a workstation, but compared to their contemporaries they felt really loving fast what was more unique about them was that DECwindows was a complete environment very early on (pre-CDE) and reasonably productivity-focused so it even had tools like a paint app and DEC even made a MacWrite clone (DECwrite) DECwindows started life on the VAXstation workstations, but was kept high-level and built for both VMS and Ultrix on them and so was easy to bring to the MIPS and then Alpha lines too, and DEC really thought they’d be able to put X terminals on the desks of non-technical staff to run productivity software instead of using PCs, which wasn’t that insane when PCs were also a couple grand each and ran DOS and the idea of a network was new, but by 1992 the writing was on the wall it still meant that OEMs using things like an Alpha workstation or server as a PostScript rasterizer for phototypesetting would actually build monitoring applications that fit into the environment, instead of having their own wacky interface. that’s what my 400 was used for before I got it
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Jan 11, 2022 05:10
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quote:These utilities are very processor intensive. Here at id, we share a four processor alpha 4/275 for all map processing. The final levels in quake take about 15-20 minutes each to fully process, which means that on a pentium 90 it would probably take about 2 1/2 hours. Obviously not something you want to do very often.
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Jan 11, 2022 05:11
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cool thread
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Jan 11, 2022 09:36
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I need to set it up again and install the fancy ZLX-series 3D card, it has an i860 on it!
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Jan 11, 2022 11:14
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i think i saw an unused alpha server sitting in the floor one, i have a vague recollection that it was some shade of light blue
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Jan 11, 2022 15:55
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i find the alpha weirdly uninteresting in practice, since it was so influential that the cooler parts of it are now ubiquitous anyway. compare e.g. the VAX which looks pretty insane by todays standards.
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Jan 11, 2022 16:25
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Cybernetic Vermin posted:i find the alpha weirdly uninteresting in practice, since it was so influential that the cooler parts of it are now ubiquitous anyway. compare e.g. the VAX which looks pretty insane by todays standards. go on about VAX architecture plz
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Jan 11, 2022 17:49
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yeah if a mod wants to amend the thread title to "show/tell me about dec [stuff]" i'm cool w/ thateschaton posted:[good post] thanks!
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Jan 11, 2022 18:02
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Through my work I used to have a pile of DEC Alpha hardware, right up to the rebranded as Compaq workstations. Got rid of them around 15 years ago, as they were either dying, or just massive power hogs and Linux support was drying up for the CPU. They were cool back in the day, and the workplace used to use them for a lot of our back end systems. I wish I held onto a couple of the DEC workstations, but there you go.
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Jan 12, 2022 01:01
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important question: in the heyday of 90's, in-your-face extreme ads, did they ever market it as like "intel can suck my DEC" or something??? real alpha poo poo right there
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Jan 12, 2022 03:40
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Armitag3 posted:Fart what the hell are you an ik of? farting out posts mainly
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Jan 12, 2022 03:59
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circa like 1999 in an internship i built a bioinformatics webapp that farmed out compute to a few alpha 21164 machines. the alpha machines were stripped from a couple crappy disk servers that were flaky and unusable, and they let me use them for this project instead at least at the time, the alphas were better at floating point performance than x86, although that gap closed toward the late 90s anyway. and every bio search algorithm was basically a dynamic programming problem dealing in lots of super small floating point numbers. i just ran red hat 6 on there so it wasn't anything really special or different from my perspective trying to run stuff on it. really the thing that was more of a curiosity to me at the time was digging a PC out of the storage closet and finding it was running NeXTSTEP
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Jan 12, 2022 05:07
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Best Bi Geek Squid posted:important question: in the heyday of 90's, in-your-face extreme ads, did they ever market it as like "intel can suck my DEC" or something??? Intel was a maker of little toy 32 bit processors for babies running windows. nobody thought of them as competition for real workstations and servers, they were busy competing against sparc (sun), power (ibm), mips (sgi), and hppa (hp).
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Jan 12, 2022 05:21
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Best Bi Geek Squid posted:important question: in the heyday of 90's, in-your-face extreme ads, did they ever market it as like "intel can suck my DEC" or something??? hp did https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLTh4uVJduI you have to wonder who the target demographic for this was, as these were workstations that cost thousands (or 10s of thousands) of 1990s us dollars and were mainly sold to companies where everyone wore a tie. then again, it probably really stood out in a sea of the typical business-to-business sales presentations that consisted of some stuffed shirt reading a checklist of product points in a monotone voice
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Jan 12, 2022 06:02
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The_Franz posted:hp did holy poo poo lol thats a sight to beholden
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Jan 12, 2022 06:38
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wish I could find the Huey Lewis knockoff song called “Power of Sun” but I think it must have been memory holed
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Jan 12, 2022 06:51
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you want to see a really weird and cool architecture, check out the PDP-8 the personal computer revolution could have been twelve-bit from the quick reference card: code:(OPR does a hell of a lot of heavy lifting but still not as much as you might think, it’s extremely RISC)
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Jan 12, 2022 07:23
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it’s like a couple hours to write a PDP-8 emulator in C, it’s awesome
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Jan 12, 2022 07:28
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