linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 00/14] alpha: cleanups for 6.10

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Message-ID: <CAHk-=wgncrjmWSETfPt+j6DY-MLH0=Lrd8kJHR6Tz1iJ6i39VA@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2024 17:50:51 -0700
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To: "Maciej W. Rozycki" <macro@...am.me.uk>
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>, 
	John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz@...sik.fu-berlin.de>, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...nel.org>, 
	linux-alpha@...r.kernel.org, Richard Henderson <richard.henderson@...aro.org>, 
	Ivan Kokshaysky <ink@...assic.park.msu.ru>, Matt Turner <mattst88@...il.com>, 
	Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>, Marc Zyngier <maz@...nel.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, 
	Michael Cree <mcree@...on.net.nz>, Frank Scheiner <frank.scheiner@....de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/14] alpha: cleanups for 6.10

On Tue, 2 Jul 2024 at 17:12, Maciej W. Rozycki <macro@...am.me.uk> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 1 Jul 2024, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> >
> > But honestly, that's basically saying "in a different universe, alpha
> > is not a mis-design".
>
>  Precisely my point!  We got so used to think in multiples of 8 bits that
> other approaches seem ridiculous.

But Maciej - alpha *was* designed for bytes. It wasn't a Cray 1. It
wasn't a PDP-10. It was designed by the time people knew that bytes
were the dominant thing, and that bytes were important and the main
use case.

But it was designed BADLY. The architecture sucked.

Give it up. If alpha had been designed in the 60s or 70s when the
whole issue of bytes were was debatable, it would have been
incredible.

But no. It was designed for byte accesses, and it FAILED AT THEM.

              Linus