Alpha

Alpha

An Alpha is a RISC processor invented by Digital Corporation and currently produced by Digital/Compaq and Samsung. A few different OSes run on Alpha based machines including Digital, UNIX, Windows NT, Linux,NetBSD, and AmigaOS. Historically, at any given time, the fastest processor in the world has usually been an Alpha or a PowerPC, but Compaq has recently announced there will be no further developement of this superb processor, banking instead on the release of the somewhat suspect Merced.