Windows on Alpha
This page is WIP!
Alpha (also DEC Alpha or AXP) is a 64-bit RISC architecture created by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1992. Hardware for this architecture was manufactures until 2001 after Compaq bought DEC and decided to sell off the IP to the Alpha architecture to Intel, effectively killing it. Baseline development continued until 2004 and sales were stopped in 2007.
See Wikipedia for a thorough breakdown of the history of Alpha.
Windows
The first release of Windows for the Alpha platform was Windows NT 3.1 sometime in September 1993.
Windows NT 3.1
Windows NT 3.5x
Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 4.0 was the last full fledged release of Windows on the Alpha architecture, released in July 1996 and discontinued in December 2001, 3 years before the x86 counterparts.
Windows 2000
Development of Windows 2000 was well underway when Compaq announced the end of support for Windows on the Alpha architecture. The same day, 24 August 1999, Microsoft announced that development of future versions of Windows, including the currently developed Windows 2000, would be ended immediately.[1] At that time, Release Candidate 1 (Build 2072) released on 1 July 1999 was the last published build of Windows 2000.[2]
However Release Candidate 2 (Build 2128) was still built internally at Microsoft weeks after the announcement and eventually got leaked onto the internet. It is the last publicly available Alpha build of Windows.[3]
Windows XP (64-bit)
In the late 90s Microsoft agreed to create a 64-bit version of Windows for the Intel Itanium platform that was dated to release around the year 2000. However because the platform was delayed multiple times, Microsoft opted to start development on the Alpha platform since it is 64-bit capable and the hardware was already available. The currently only known 64-bit build of Windows for Alpha is Build 2210 compiled on 2 March 2000. It is an early and experimental build of Windows and does not contain a compatibility layer for classic 32-bit Alpha applications. Only x86 applications can be run through a ported FX!32 implementation.[4]
Software
Microsoft Software
Various Software was released by Microsoft for the platform, although support cannot be compared to x86 with many applications being either incomplete or just not available on Alpha systems.
- BackOffice Server, including:
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Microsoft SNA Server
- Microsoft SMS
- Microsoft Exchange Server
- Microsoft Proxy Server
- Microsoft Index Server
- Microsoft Transaction Server
- Microsoft Site Server
- Microsoft FrontPage
- Visual InterDev
- Windows NT Option Pack, including:
- Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)
- Microsoft Management Console (MMC)
- Microsoft Internet Explorer (up to 5.0)
- Windows Media Player (up to 5.2)
- Microsoft Office
- Visual Studio
