The first Alpha processor was a test chip codenamed EV3.
The venture was also aimed at expanding Samsung's non-memory chip business by fabricating Alpha processors.
The Tarantula research project, which most likely would have been called EV9, would have been the first Alpha processor to feature a vector unit.
The fastest supercomputers based on Alpha processors:
There was also a special cpu slot for an Alpha processor, that was never released.
The two companies settled out of court, and Microsoft agreed to support Digital's Alpha processor.
The Compaq computer will be based on 2.728 Alpha processors, which will be organized into 682 separate nodes and will cost about $36 million.
As of 1998, it used 20 multi-processor machines using DEC's 64-bit Alpha processor.
Prospects for Digital's Alpha processor, meanwhile, are in doubt because the computer maker has been acquired by Compaq Computer, Intel's best customer.
DEC had released their Alpha processor and were less interested in promoting a competing architecture.