> Finding software written for Win32/Alpha, though, is likely to be a challenge.
As someone who actually had one of these at work[1] back in the early 90s, there was hardly any software compiled for Alpha even when it was a current product. Lack of software support, was one of the reasons that WinNT Alpha never gained a foothold. Which was a shame as the Alpha hardware was pretty great.
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[1] It was the only one we had, I think we got it as a freebie as the rest of the computer room was choca full of DEC VAXs.
there was hardly any software compiled for Alpha even when it was a current product
I ran SQL Server on NT on Alpha in the 90s, it was actually very good, but you had to treat it as a dedicated appliance rather than a general-purpose computer because as you say, there was very little software available.
Then the industry took a weird meander through DEC StrongARM and now Microsoft is looking at Windows on ARM seriously again...
If I remember correctly there was something called FX32 that was like a dynamic transpiler from X86 to Alpha. You could run Win32 apps, and they would get faster over time as it cached translated binaries.
I remember a local college loved them because you could teach 3d modeling. They really weren't used for the actual modelling but rather as cheap render farms that could run at night.
As someone who actually had one of these at work[1] back in the early 90s, there was hardly any software compiled for Alpha even when it was a current product. Lack of software support, was one of the reasons that WinNT Alpha never gained a foothold. Which was a shame as the Alpha hardware was pretty great.
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[1] It was the only one we had, I think we got it as a freebie as the rest of the computer room was choca full of DEC VAXs.