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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!nntp-hub2.barrnet.net!nntp-sc.barrnet.net!netapp.com!netapp.com!not-for-mail From: guy@netapp.com (Guy Harris) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.aix Subject: Re: ISP hardware/software choices (performance comparison) Date: 17 Jan 1996 22:47:47 -0800 Organization: Network Appliance Lines: 20 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <4dkqej$e0p@bayonne.netapp.com> References: <4cmopu$d35@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <4crnbe$8a@olympus.nwnet.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.9.200.18 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:2026 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:2184 comp.unix.solaris:57602 comp.unix.aix:69020 Anthony D'Atri <aad@nwnet.net> wrote: >They're also 64-bit machines, which means that various software is going to >be unstable on them for a while yet. Alphas have been out for several years, >and people are still figuring out how to port things to them reliably. UltraSPARC machines can run 32-bit SPARC binaries - in fact, I don't think SunOS 5.5 supports larger than 32-bit address spaces yet. Even the HAL machines, whose SunOS 5.4 *does*, as I understand it, support larger than 32-bit address spaces, supports 32-bit SPARC binaries, as far as I know. I.e., it's not as if you have to port 32-bit SPARC applications to the new platforms. If you want to use SPARC V9 or VIS instructions, you do, but I don't know how many applications will be ported to SPARC V9 or SPARC V9 + VIS (especially if SunOS 5.x doesn't yet support one of the most important features of SPARC V9, albeit not the *only* feature - I don't know if you can use instructions that deal with 64-bit integral quantities under Sun's 5.5, although you can presumably use VIS instructions).