I understand why no x86, but...

dawe · External Since: Aug 21, 2006 Posts: 6

Hi there, I'm running on a small mixed cluster made of
1 x86 (dual xeon) machine
2 ia64 (quad itanium2) machines and
2 alpha (dual ev68) machines
all with gentoo and I'm pretty satisfied.
I have a problem with a propietary applications that is distributed only
for x86, x86_64 and ia64 platforms and not alpha Sad

I must run that app
only on 3/5 of my machines
I understand why I cannot run x86 binaries on alpha but I wonder if
there is a way to run ia64 binaries...

Thanks

d

Robert M. Riches Jr. · External Since: Apr 19, 2004 Posts: 1289

On 2006-10-04, dawe <me DeleteThis @adomain.no> wrote:
> Hi there, I'm running on a small mixed cluster made of
> 1 x86 (dual xeon) machine
> 2 ia64 (quad itanium2) machines and
> 2 alpha (dual ev68) machines
> all with gentoo and I'm pretty satisfied.
> I have a problem with a propietary applications that is distributed only
> for x86, x86_64 and ia64 platforms and not alpha Sad

I must run that app
> only on 3/5 of my machines
> I understand why I cannot run x86 binaries on alpha but I wonder if
> there is a way to run ia64 binaries...

The short answer: No.

The long answer: Each instruction set architecture is
different. Unless one instruction set architecture was
specifically designed to be compatible with or have a
compatibility mode for some other instruction set
architecture, it would basically take emulation or
translation to run machine code on another instruction set
architecture. It's kind-of like trying to put Ford cylinder
heads on a Dodge engine block. They may both be a V-8
configuration, but the internal details are all different.

Sorry the news isn't what you seem to have wanted. I miss
my old Alpha machine (UP2000).

--
Robert Riches
spamtrap42 DeleteThis @verizon.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)

Staffan Tjernstrom · External Since: Aug 29, 2006 Posts: 10

On Wed, 2006-10-04 at 23:24 +0200, dawe wrote:
> Robert M. Riches Jr. <spamtrap42.DeleteThis@verizon.net> wrote:
> I understand this. I only thought that if an emulation layer to run x86
> binaries on ia64 exists (32 vs 64 bit plus pretty different and
> incompatible architectures) it may exist a layer to run ia64 on alpha...
>
Generally emulators are (sometimes) provided by the folks doing new
processors to run code from older processors, the reason being that
they're very expensive to produce, and it's only possible to recover the
investment in this direction.

Thus there was once upon a time an emulator for VAX code for Alpha (as
well as an IA32 emulator).

Likewise I believe there is an IA32 emulator for IA64 (there may even be
an Alpha emulator available, at least for OpenVMS).

However, there will never be an IA64 emulator for Alpha.

dawe · External Since: Aug 21, 2006 Posts: 6

Robert M. Riches Jr. <spamtrap42.TakeThisOut@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> The short answer: No.
>

Sad

> The long answer: Each instruction set architecture is
> different. Unless one instruction set architecture was
> specifically designed to be compatible with or have a
> compatibility mode for some other instruction set
> architecture, it would basically take emulation or
> translation to run machine code on another instruction set
> architecture. It's kind-of like trying to put Ford cylinder
> heads on a Dodge engine block. They may both be a V-8
> configuration, but the internal details are all different.
>

I understand this. I only thought that if an emulation layer to run x86
binaries on ia64 exists (32 vs 64 bit plus pretty different and
incompatible architectures) it may exist a layer to run ia64 on alpha...

> Sorry the news isn't what you seem to have wanted. I miss
> my old Alpha machine (UP2000).

Don't worry Smile

d

dawe · External Since: Aug 21, 2006 Posts: 6

Staffan Tjernstrom <news RemoveThis @staffan.tjernstrom.name> wrote:

> Generally emulators are (sometimes) provided by the folks doing new
> processors to run code from older processors, the reason being that
> they're very expensive to produce, and it's only possible to recover the
> investment in this direction.
> However, there will never be an IA64 emulator for Alpha.

I see, thanks!

d

MC · External Since: Oct 05, 2006 Posts: 3

Actually, I recently played with an Alpha I got recently, and I am
running x86 binaries on it, however, we're not talking linux here. I'm
wondering if it's possible to do something similar to FX!32 for linux,
as it seems to run fine and speedy on my setup, and I can imagine you
could do the same on the linux architecture, supporting a different
binary type...

Staffan Tjernstrom wrote:
> Thus there was once upon a time an emulator for VAX code for Alpha (as
> well as an IA32 emulator).
>
> Likewise I believe there is an IA32 emulator for IA64 (there may even be
> an Alpha emulator available, at least for OpenVMS).
>
> However, there will never be an IA64 emulator for Alpha.
>