Beating Microsoft Corp to the punch, Santa Cruz Operation Inc has sent an early version of its 64-bit UnixWare running on an Intel Corp Merced emulator to some of its key ISVs. Although, according to insiders, Microsoft doesn’t yet have a 64-bit version of Windows NT 5.0 booting on an emulator, an enhanced 32-bit mode version of Windows NT 4.x has been shown at more than one Intel/Microsoft NDA briefing. In addition to supporting 16-bit 808×6 applications Microsoft is working on a full 64-bit mode NT for Merced. SCO’s UnixWare for Merced is already running in full 64-bit mode. It includes an early version of the company’s 64-bit software developer’s kit and utilizes Intel’s compiler technology. SCO is talking to third parties about creating custom compilers for UnixWare; former Unix owner Novell Inc’s Unix System Labs wrote its own. However SCO will continue to work with Intel’s compiler technology as its primary development platform as it incorporates the most up-to-date Merced instruction and features set. Merced still exists only on a computer – it hasn’t taped out yet – while systems are not expected until late 1999.
Merced ABI
Industry newsletter ClieNT Server News says Microsoft’s NT 5.0, not due until the end of next year, eschews the Extended Link Format 64 (ELF) executable format which Intel wants Merced system software to use in favor of an extended version of the Koff-based PE executable format it currently uses. Microsoft has always used a proprietary object format while Intel’s said to favour a 64-bit version of ELF – the standard Unix binary format – because it will enable programs written for Merced operating systems to be recompiled for other operating systems running on the chip, thereby enabling it to capture the application base. Microsoft, which is writing its own compilers for Merced is said to have finished with the front-end but must now, observers told Computergram, get to grips with the really hard stuff, the back end. It’s this part that translates all the code into real instructions, a job made doubly difficult because some Merced instructions are apparently still being worked out. The front end work, the same observers say, can mostly be cloned from existing products and extended with the new Merced features. As for the notion that ELF 64 will enable Intel to capture SCO’s application base and have them easily convert to other Merced operating systems, SCO says that’s what the Unix-standard ELF format has always been about. In fact it sees ELF 64 as just the first step towards a Merced ABI, an effort which it expects Intel would lead to ensure that system software developed for Merced will run on any vendor’s system implementation, much like the existing MIPS ABI group’s work. SCO didn’t apparently see fit to trumpet its 64-bit achievement, preoccupied as it is with forthcoming Big E II and other ISV and partner announcements due in February and March.
