Alpha Architecture Reference Manual

Rating:
Summary: Alpha Architecture Manual -- Great stuff!
Review: I've been an Alpha developer for the NetBSD Operating System Project for several years now, and simply can't say enough about this book. It, like most documentation from Digital (now Compaq), is very thorough and well organized. It is a must for anyone doing systems programming on the Alpha, and quite valuable for people doing application optimization, as well.

It discusses the OpenVMS, Digital UNIX, and Windows NT PALcode operations in detail, has a full instruction set reference, discussions on performance optimizations, and also describes other architectural details, such as the console software interface.

If you're not an Alpha developer, get it anyway! The design decisions are discussed in detail, and it's a great way to learn about modern, high performance architecture design.