Intel Developer Forum As exclusively revealed here two weeks ago, Intel has managed to produce working silicon for the Merced microprocessor. One box ran Linux Apache while another ran 64-bit Win2000, for a while... Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel, reserved a demonstration of two machines for the end of his keynote speech. He introduced the head of the Merced project, Gady Singer, who said that the company had produced working silicon only a matter of weeks ago, but by now had thousands of engineering samples available. Simulated OS software was now being ported to the real silicon, said Barrett. HP/UX and Monterey are next on the list. Barrett positioned Merced and the IA-64 architecture as the infrastructure for the burgeoning Internet. He claimed that only five per cent of the capacity needed by the Internet was available so far. Intel demonstrated Linux and Windows 2000 running on two Merced machines using silicon. The Win64 box was running graphics 64-bit applications and a 64-bit version of Windows 2000, which, however, came up with a message saying the evaluation period had expired. That caused Barrett to quip: "I've enough money to keep it going for another three minutes." The Internet and its growth both is business and the home formed the main thrust of Barrett's speech, as he repeated forecasts showing that the worth of e-business in the US would be a trillion dollars by the year 2002. That, he said, represented a tenth of the US GDP. Barrett said that while most publicity focused on business to customer transactions, such as Ebay and Amazon, the bulk of the growth -- 80 per cent or so -- will be business to business transfers. But Barrett also said that access for consumers to the Internet had to be easier, and coined the phrase "e-home" to demonstrate the concept. He said that joint initiatives between Microsoft and Intel meant PCs would become easier, with many homes having different x.86 based appliances throughout. Intel's task, said Barrett, was to provide the building blocks across the board, whether it be networking, server, mobile or PC. He also said Intel expected to produce its first Coppermine processors in volume in October, and suggested that a 700MHz processor might be available at that time. ® Register666Fact When we saw the press release Intel put out a little later, the headline was Microsoft and Intel announce 64-bit Windows running on Merced processor. The sheer spinola of it all... See also Merced silicon happens: Linux runs, NT doesn't Intel to demo Merced silicon tomorrow Full IDF Summer 99 coverage