[fpc-devel] FPC related fairy tale

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Sven Barth wrote:

>> To my surprise I've got an Alpha system, but my understanding is that
>> nobody's making silicon any more. Since Chinese manufacturers appear to
>> have settled on MIPS as their non-x86 of choice, I don't see much future
>> for it.
> 
> That nobody is producing Alpha (or Alpha-like) chips anymore is the 
> biggest problem with it. So only have legacy devices and emulators to 
> work on...

Much as I respect venerable antiques, if nobody's using it and having an 
FPC port isn't going to encourage use I see little point in the effort.

SPARC is live- although Oracle are being aggressive in their attempts to 
make it a closed system for their turnkey products. MIPS is alive, 
courtesy of the Chinese who- I'm told- are now shipping good-value kit. 
68K is alive thanks to Coldfire etc. IA-64 is alive but on life-support. 
IBM mainframes are alive, thanks largely their support for Linux.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]