Just what is there to the Texas connection between Compaq, Microsoft and AMD? (Story: What's Digital Anvil up to?)

No sooner had we posted the last story on Digital Anvil when a source from the US gave us some hints and tips as to what is going on. On the Alpha Processor page, for example, he rightly points out that the partners are Compaq, Microsoft and Samsung.

And at Ace's Hardware page, we can read more about the Texas ChipSaw Massacre. Of course, Old Dirk Meyer, in charge of the AMD K7, used to work on the 21264 Alpha design team, and our mole points out that the rumour is that the K7 itself is a 32-bit version of the 21264. More and more amazing.

Another rumour doing the rounds is that a Compaq Presario will come with a K7 Slot A inside it - sooner than we might think, points out our correspondent. We saw a real RoadRunner when we were at the Intel Developer Forum earlier this year.

Our correspondent asks: "Is it a Texas RoadRunner?" And are Time Warner, Compaq, Microsoft and Samsung part of that? And why wasn't the Great Stan of Chips invited to that show? More.

He asks why Time Warner affiliates are such strong supporters of the Alpha, wonders why Compaq, Microsoft, Samsung and maybe Time Warner will be at this year's National Association of Broadcasters Convention. Why, he asks, has Corel stock jumped by 400 per cent since September last year and is so chummy with Quark - will they merge?

And why are they now using Microsoft Development Tools and Adobe turns nasty when Alpha NT is mentioned. Wow. More. Did Intel pay Adobe to prevent it from porting products to the Alpha NT platform? Will IBM build Alpha processors? The Register will be asking all of these parties all of these questions during the course of this week...®