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List:       freebsd-alpha
Subject:    Re: end of life for DEC branded Alphas (and Tru64) (fwd)
From:       Wilko Bulte <wkb () freebie ! demon ! nl>
Date:       2000-09-21 18:16:32
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On Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 09:43:36PM -0700, Matthew Jacob wrote:

Sigh..

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:51:02 -0400 (EDT)
> From: William H. Magill <magill@isc.upenn.edu>
> Reply-To: axp-list@redhat.com
> To: axp-list@redhat.com
> Subject: end of life for DEC branded Alphas (and Tru64)
> 
> My understanding is that any EV56 or earlier processor will no longer be
> supported by Tru64 after 5.1 (and depending on how you read the 5.1 release
> notes, NOT in 5.1)

Which is a *wrong* understanding. Just read Tom's words carefully. 
Oracle may be moving, there is nothing that says T64 does the same.

What Tom writes is that the Turbochannel I/O bus machines are end of
support. And DEC2000 (Jensen & Culzean) which are EISA-only. 

TC based boxes are just marginally useful on FreeBSD to start with: the SCSI
CAM subsystem does not support TC based SCSI adapters. Jensen is not
supported at all.

> This implies that there will be a LOT of 1000A's hitting the market
> in the not too distant future. (There are supposedly "thousands"
> of them in use by various telcos.) The 1000As are a nice box. Lots of PCI 
> slots.

Guess what: 1000A are PCI/EISA machines right? Where does it say PCI boxes are
being retired??

>   ----------< Forwarded Message Follows >----------
>   Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:24:11 -0400
>   From: "Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646" <tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com>
>   Subject: Tru64 UNIX V5.1 and TruCluster software
>   To: tru64-unix-managers@ornl.gov
> 
>   Rich asked:
> 
>   > Just curious if anyone has the status on whether
>   > 5.1 has been qualified and is shipping yet?
> 
>   Yes, kits are starting to ship.  I've received my shipment, and once
>   the internal distribution is complete, they start shipping customer
>   updates.  Someone asked about fibre channel arbitrated loop for the
>   TruCluster product, and that's still in testing, so the statement of
>   support for that isn't ready, but otherwise, the TruCluster product
>   is also out and ready to go.
> 
>   By the way, V5.1 is the last release that will support the older
>   "DEC" branded Alpha systems (the ones that do NOT have PCI buses
>   for I/O -- the DEC 2000, DEC 3000, DEC 4000, DEC 7000/10000).  We
>   announced in the V5.0A release notes that support would be removed
>   in a future release, and in the V5.1 notes that V5.1 is the last
>   release to support those older systems.  Bear in mind that all of
>   these systems ARE supported in the V4.0G release, and that V4.0G
>   is planned to have a long service life.  If you are using one of
>   these older systems and have not yet decided to move to V5.x, you
>   might be better off moving to V4.0G than to V5.0 or V5.0A or V5.1.
> 
>   I have also heard reports that Oracle Corporation may be retiring
>   their support for the older CPU models that did not support byte
>   and double-byte (8 bit and 16 bit) operations (LCA, EV4, EV45, EV5).
>   If you are using Oracle software on older systems using those old
>   CPU designs, you may wish to check with Oracle on their intentions
>   for future support.
> 
>   Tom
> 
>    Dr. Thomas P. Blinn + UNIX Software Group + Compaq Computer Corporation
>     110 Spit Brook Road, MS ZKO3-2/W17   Nashua, New Hampshire 03062-2698

-- 
Wilko Bulte  	 					wilko@freebsd.org
							Arnhem, the Netherlands


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