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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: is Vax addressing sane today
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2024 00:43:56 -0000 (UTC)
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On Fri, 04 Oct 2024 15:07:17 GMT, Anton Ertl wrote:

> Power still survives, maybe only because it has a common basis with
> iSeries (or whatever it is called now).

As I understand it, iSeries is the emulation of the old AS/400 on POWER 
processors. And AS/400 was the unification of the older System/38 with the 
System/34? System/36? lines.

System/38 (or AS/400, or iSeries) has/had this interestingly unusual 
architecture which builds database features right into the OS kernel, so 
that they can be used everywhere. And it also uses capabilities as an 
alternative to the traditional privilege-mode hierarchy. Neither of these 
ideas says much for performance, but they still suggest some interesting 
possibilities, nonetheless.

Native POWER is, I think, called pSeries. It continues to sell in its own 
right because it offers high performance--high enough to earn a few 
ongoing spots near the top of the Top500 supercomputer list.