In the wake of the new Hewlett-Packard Co-Intel Corp alliance, long-dead Multiflow Computer Inc is reaching out from beyond the grave to prove that its influence still lingers on. Multiflow turned up its toes in March of 1990 after a deal with Digital Equipment Corp that might have prolonged its existence fell apart. A few months before, in December 1989, Intel had licensed Multiflow’s compiler technology. In March it was DEC’s turn, but that was the self-same quarter DEC turned in its very first loss ever. DEC reneged on the agreement, Multiflow ran out of operating capital and hit the wall, and DEC was able to come back later and license the same stuff more cheaply. To satisfy creditors, Multiflow’s chief executive Don Eckblahl and chie. Multiflow designers also went to Silicon Graphics Inc whernd its deal with Inteven, 14 and 28 operations per cycle. Unfortunately they were not object code-compatible, creating problems never resolved by the company. Perhaps the distinguishing feature of Very Long Instruction Word technology is the way it reduces on-ch Team scatteredBesides DEC and Intel, current licensees include Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu Ltd, Hitachi Ltd and NEC Corp. The technology is said to have been applied to supercomputers, workstations, personal computers, signal processors and embedded processors. The rest of the Multiflow team scattered. Co-founder Josh Fisher went to Hewlett-Packard where together with Bob Rau, founder of erstwhile Multiflow competitor Cydrome Inc, he is believed to be key to Hewlett-Packard’s wide word efforts and its deal with Intel. Multiflow designers also went to Silicon Graphics Inc where they are said to have been instrumental on the TFP design, the high-end MIPS chip that just came out as the R8000 and to Intel where they have been working on the P6 chip, which Intel claimed recently is finished. Multiflow’s former vice-president of engineering John Setel O’Donnell now runs Seattle-based Equator Technologies Inc, a consultancy helping companies use Multiflow technology. Multiflow built machines capable of seven, 14 and 28 operations per cycle. Unfortunately they were not object code-compatible, creating problems never resolved by the company. Perhaps the distinguishing feature of Very Long Instruction Word technology is the way it reduces on chip complexity by pushing the work out into the compilers. Although Hewlett-Packard, which initiated the alliance with Intel, waxed eloquent on Very Long Word techniques the end of last year when it was still on its own and conceiving its planned PA-9000 chip, it now declares that what it is building with Intel is not a Very Long Instruction Word chip but rather a descendant or evolution of the technique, coupled with technologies that haven’t been invented yet. But experts like O’Donnell reason that the companies’ first task must have been to address how different-width Very Long Instruction Word can run the same software. O’Donnell also contends that whatever they build might run both iAPX-86 and Precision Architecture RISC software but doubts its performance capabilities.
