Itanium® Architecture for Programmers

Itanium Workstation and Server Configurations

System hardware or hardware simulators

When Itanium and Itanium 2 processors were first released, a few companies incorporated them in workstation-class systems that saw primary use as software developer office systems. Since then, Itanium 2 processors have been used only in server-class systems. Used equipment dealers may have workstations for sale.

Intel provides a listing of companies offering Itanium-related products.

Ski, a simulator for Itanium (IA-64) architecture is a free download from Hewlett-Packard. This software runs under Linux on IA-32 (x86) systems.

Virtual PC, initially developed by Connectix Corporation, was transferred to Microsoft Corporation in 2003 and is now free for Windows systems. (The former commercial product for Macintosh systems based on PowerPC processors will not be converted for the current Macintosh line based on Intel processors.)

Simics™ for a variety of host and target systems is a commercial product of Virtutech® AB, which offers free annual licensing for faculty and students on their personal systems.

System software

Linux distribution sources

Debian

Mandriva does not appear to be doing any new development of the port for the IA-64 (Itanium) architecture formerly called Mandrake Linux.

Red Hat

Rocks cluster distribution, based on Red Hat and initiated by NPACI (National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure)

SuSE (acquired in 2004 by Novell)

See also Linux Online

BSD® Unix ports

FreeBSD for the Itanium architecture is on its way to becoming fully supported (Tier 1), but is presently classified as developmental (Tier 2). Check here for the status of any porting plans for other variants.

HP-UX port

Hewlett-Packard Company has completed a port of the HP-UX operating system for Itanium processors. This UNIX operating system was first developed for 32-bit and later 64-bit PA-RISC processors.

NonStop port

Hewlett-Packard Company has completed a plan to replace MIPS processors with Itanium processors in NonStop products.

OpenVMS® port

Hewlett-Packard Company has completed a port of the OpenVMS operating system for Itanium processors. This operating system was first developed for 32-bit VAX processors and became a 64-bit operating system for Alpha processors (by the former Digital Equipment Corporation).

Intel compilers for Linux

Intel Corporation produces compilers that have the same language features for Linux as for Windows.

C++ (also does C and Itanium assembly)
FORTRAN 95 (with some features from FORTRAN 2003)

Note: The corresponding Intel compilers for Windows Server 2003 target systems run on ordinary IA-32 developer workstations instead of the target system.

Intel no-cost items

Divide, Square Root, and Remainder Algorithms for the Itanium Architecture, divsqrt.zip (60 KiB)

Highly Optimized Mathematical Functions for the Itanium Architecture, libm.zip (1.46 MiB)

Optimized String and Memory Functions, str_mem_func2.zip (13.5 KiB)

Hewlett-Packard compilers for HP-UX

Many of the Hewlett-Packard developer’s tools are tabulated here. Specific links for the compilers mentioned in the book are as follows:

aC++ (also does C and Itanium assembly)
FORTRAN 95

Microsoft products

The Microsoft operating system Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems exists in Enterprise and Datacenter Editions. The IA-32 Execution Layer (IA-32 EL) Software Driver developed by Intel Corporation is available as a free download. This latter software component provides much better performance than the intrinsic IA-32 compatibility incorporated at the hardware level in early Itanium processors.


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