[rescue] Compaq Proliant 8000

[Dave McGuire]

On Apr 29, 2004, at 2:10 PM, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>>> The i860 was one of Intel's attempts to get away from x86, but it
>>> failed.
>>
>>   It failed?  They sold a metric buttload of them, and they were used
>> in all sorts of applications.  Same with the i960.  Same with about
>> 5-10 other architectures.
>
> It failed perhaps because it had enough problems that it didn't make
> it in its target market.  Of course, are we really sure what Intel was
> targeting?
...
>>   Saying it "failed" because it never became their biggest seller is
>> like saying every other model of car from Ford "failed" because it
>> didn't out-sell the Escort.
>
> Probably depends on how you view it.  I don't think Intel really was
> targeting the embedded market, but that seem to be the only place it 
> was
> a success.

   I just have a hard time looking at at product which sold huge numbers 
of units and saying it "failed".

   Perhaps this is just a matter of the redefinition of the term 
"failed" to mean "didn't replace x86"...which it wasn't designed to do 
in the first place!

   Intel has built a LOT of processors and processor architectures, many 
of which had nothing to do with x86, were never designed to compete 
with x86, and were highly successful products...and some of those 
non-x86-related Intel architectures are *still* quite successful...Take 
the 8051 microcontroller for example, circa 1980.  It is shipping today 
in excess of *one million chips per DAY*.

   Do we call it a failure, though, because Microsoft didn't port 
Windows to it and you can't buy whiz-bang plastic desktop computers 
based on them in WalMart?

          -Dave

--
Dave McGuire          "PC users only know two 'solutions'...
Cape Coral, FL          reboot and upgrade."    -Jonathan Patschke