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Subject: Re: Tell me about Alpha

Author: David Blackman

Date: 04:41:27 07/08/99

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On July 07, 1999 at 13:01:42, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>
>On July 07, 1999 at 08:02:14, Rajen Gupta wrote:
>
>>when microsoft the great releases a 64 bit version of win9x/NT, would that be
>>the time when the alpha processor comes into its own?
>
>I don't see why, but, warning, I am not an expert on the Alpha.
>
>The compiler you get from Microsoft, which I am told has a Digital back end,
>generates 32-bit ints by default.  But the Alpha seems to do fine on 32-bit
>ints.  And you can make a 64-bit int easily enough.
>
>So, I don't see what changing the OS and compiler to use 64-bit ints by default
>will accomplish, in a chess programming sense.
>
>bruce

Not really in a chess sprogramming sense, but a 64 bit address space would be
nice for a lot of applications. I work at a small-to-medium size business and
some of our stuff thrashes our 384MB server. An upgrade to almost 1GB is planned
for soon. In a few years i expect us to need more than 4GB. Alpha/Linux would be
a serious option if we wanted this right now. I suppose places with more Windows
NT expertise would prefer NT, if and when it goes 64 bit.

For chess, is suppose there might be some advantage in really huge transposition
tables, or having the 5 piece EGTBs in ram instead of disc :-)



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