Windows on Alpha
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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 currently the last available 32-bit Alpha build of Windows.[3]
A 64-bit of Windows 2000 for the Alpha platform was also in development, however due to Windows support being dropped by Compaq this version was never finished and publicly released.[4] However various Microsoft Platform SDKs from mid to end 1999 contained preliminary AXP64 compilers for developers to use and test.
Windows XP (64-bit)
Since a 64-bit version of Windows for the Alpha platform was not going to be released, Microsoft shifted focus on the upcoming Itanium (IA64) platform. Due to various delays in finalization and shipping of Itanium hardware, Microsoft internally continued the development on the AXP64 platform until Itanium was ready. By that time Windows 2000 was already out, so development continued towards releasing Windows XP as the first 64-bit Version, with early builds still being made for AXP64. The currently only available AXP64 build of Windows is Build 2210 compiled on 2 March 2000. It is a very early build of Windows XP (back then known as Whistler 2001) and does not contain a compatibility layer for 32-bit Alpha applications. Only x86 applications can be run through a ported FX!32 implementation.[5]
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
Sources
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/19991012214337/http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/news/msnw/compaq.asp
- ↑ https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_2000_build_2072
- ↑ https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_2000_build_2128
- ↑ Win64 HTML Help "WhyWin64.html" from the Windows 2000 Beta 3 Platform SDK (X04-77982) "Compaq will have the first 64-bit NT systems available on the market. - Alpha-based systems from Compaq are built on 64-bit hardware today and will run 64-bit NT as soon as it is ready. Alpha with 64-bit NT will bring leadership performance and scalability to industry standard computing."
- ↑ https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_XP_build_2210
