CompuServe Messages

Chuck, > a week ago when I was ballyhooed by the DEC marketing claims? Sorry, my mail reader purges after 5 days, this weekend alone gave me over 400 messages. Info flood. What did they claim? > As far as 3DS running faster on an Alpha, NOT! <BG> I realize that. Emulation always bites. But since 3DS was written in C (I assume), an AXP specific version could be created simply by running the code through an optimizing AXP compiler. There would probably be some porting problems, but my experience dragging various ray tracers from Intel over to Alpha haven't been that bad. Actually I was surprised how similar both platforms were. I debated long and hard before deciding to go with the Alpha. I can get bare bones 486/66's now for about $1K each. A Pentium being 2x speed and 3X price just doesn't cut it. Believe me, an Alpha being 3.5X the speed (the 200 Mhz anyway) and 7X the price was no better. The hidden cost with these Intel boxes was stocking them all with sufficient memory and adding network cards and software to them. There's quite an economy going with one fast box. It's also quite a rush. What will really blow off all our doors will be when SMP systems finally hit the streets. Personally I'd opt for a Cray T3D but I haven't got a spare $7 mil lying about <BBG>. Jeff