By: Patrick Chase (patrickjchase.delete@this.gmail.com), August 25, 2014 11:23 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
Cleaning up a bit of my own nit-pickiness...
Patrick Chase (patrickjchase.delete@this.gmail.com) on August 25, 2014 11:15 am wrote:
> Maynard Handley (name99.delete@this.name99.org) on August 17, 2014 9:52 am wrote:
> > So getting back to LL/SC, was it considered in, say, the context of Alpha
> > and Ultrix a terrible idea? Would the alternatives have been better?
>
> For MIPS it was a terrific idea because they probably couldn't have
> done it any other way given the transistor budgets for, say, R2000.
I assumed here that by "Ultrix" you were referring to MIPS-based DECstations, as only OSF/1 was ever offered on Alpha (Ultrix was never ported AFAIK).
If you were asking solely about Alpha then I think the answer is more nuanced: They probably could have afforded either option, but LL/SC was definitely more in keeping with the overall design of the ISA. If I'd been on that team I probably would have done what they did, though recognizing that it's not inherently superior...
Patrick Chase (patrickjchase.delete@this.gmail.com) on August 25, 2014 11:15 am wrote:
> Maynard Handley (name99.delete@this.name99.org) on August 17, 2014 9:52 am wrote:
> > So getting back to LL/SC, was it considered in, say, the context of Alpha
> > and Ultrix a terrible idea? Would the alternatives have been better?
>
> For MIPS it was a terrific idea because they probably couldn't have
> done it any other way given the transistor budgets for, say, R2000.
I assumed here that by "Ultrix" you were referring to MIPS-based DECstations, as only OSF/1 was ever offered on Alpha (Ultrix was never ported AFAIK).
If you were asking solely about Alpha then I think the answer is more nuanced: They probably could have afforded either option, but LL/SC was definitely more in keeping with the overall design of the ISA. If I'd been on that team I probably would have done what they did, though recognizing that it's not inherently superior...
