Alpha Architecture Reference Manual (HP Technologies)

Alpha Architecture Reference Manual, Third Edition is the authoritative reference on the definition of Alpha architecture. Revised by the Alpha Architecture Committee, this book contains a complete description of the common architecture required of all implementations and describes the interfaces to support the Windows NT, Digital UNIX, and OpenVMS operating systems.


The third edition reflects the latest implementations of the architecture, including the 21164A, 21164PC, and 21264. Some of the extensions to the architecture and the enhancement to the technical content include: new byte and word load, store and sign-extend operations; new multimedia instructions; new population enumeration and floating-point square root instructions; new instructions to improve data cache efficiency and updated Windows NT section.

The Alpha chip is the fastest chip on the marketplace today. It runs Windows NT, UNIX and OpenVMS operating systems. New base-level server configurations provide four times the memory of current systems.

Contains updated Windows NT section to reflect current technical port to Alpha
Includes new insights into the software aspects of the implementation
Covers new multimedia instructions for increased performance with high-end graphics applications