grunwald@flute.cs.uiuc.edu (05/02/89)
I would like to solicit comments concerning certain properties of available workstations. I'm interested in architectures with a low cost for light-weight thread context switching, e.g., for process oriented D.E.S. Of the existing processors, it appears that the 88K is most suitable, since it doesn't use (1) register windows or (2) a huge register file, both of which cause a lot of problems when doing a *lot* of context switching. However, other processors have good attributes, namely they're available and cheap. Does anyone, other than Data General, make an 88K box *available now* that runs a reasonable UNIX (i.e. should be able to run Berkelyish code). Has anyone had experience with the DG Maverick? -- Dirk Grunwald Univ. of Illinois grunwald@flute.cs.uiuc.edu
roy@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (John M.A. Roy) (05/02/89)
In article <GRUNWALD.89May1131736@flute.cs.uiuc.edu>, grunwald@flute writes: | |I would like to solicit comments concerning certain properties of available [stuff deleted] | |Does anyone, other than Data General, make an 88K box *available now* that |runs a reasonable UNIX (i.e. should be able to run Berkelyish code). Has FYI, my rumor mill has it the Data General is dropping the 88K as their CPU and are going to MIPS. This is a pretty reliable source. John M.A. Roy (714) 856-5039 ICS Dept., Univ. Calif., Irvine CA 92714 Internet: roy@ics.uci.edu
mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) (05/02/89)
In article <13089@paris.ics.uci.edu> roy@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (John M.A. Roy) writes: >FYI, my rumor mill has it the Data General is dropping the 88K as their >CPU and are going to MIPS. This is a pretty reliable source. This "reliable source" just crashed. Not only is this rumor untrue, but at least in the short term, it's unimaginable, for a variety of reasons. -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc> UUCP: {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash OR mash@mips.com DDD: 408-991-0253 or 408-720-1700, x253 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) (05/02/89)
In article <GRUNWALD.89May1131736@flute.cs.uiuc.edu> grunwald@flute.cs.uiuc.edu writes: >Does anyone, other than Data General, make an 88K box *available now* that I for one would be interested in the phone number of the Data General 88K folks. That developer's deal looks very nice, and I have a few benchmarks I'd love to see run on the box. -- Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc. ...!uunet!biar!trebor | trebor@biar.UUCP "The NY Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country..."
les@unicads.UUCP (Les Milash) (05/02/89)
In article <13089@paris.ics.uci.edu> roy@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (John M.A. Roy) writes: >FYI, my rumor mill has it the Data General is dropping the 88K as their >CPU and are going to MIPS. This is a pretty reliable source. an RFmR: Why would they do that? (any guesses, anybody?) I mean, the MIPS chipset is Very Hot, I use it daily, but it seemed the 88K was too. Is it for compatability with all the other MIPSs out there? And it seems embarrasingly late to switch horses, given all the press... maybe they found a bug in the 88100 :-) ? some stupid and unrelated whining (sorry but it had to be said): The only thing I don't like* about the MIPS product line is that it seems awfully dumb to have an acronym, however cute, that omits a key negation ("Microprocessor _WITHOUT_ Interlocking Pipeline Stages"). Maybe there's a bar over the last 3 letters that ascii users can't type? I know (or think) they inherited the name from the Stanford or CalTech RISC group or somebody. Or maybe some marketing person came up with something else it stands for ("Microprocessor with Increasing Part Sales"? "May we Invest in a Porsche Soon"?) sorry. *i realize that my opinion holds little-to-no weight and is at this point completely unsolicited by anyone, including my employer (and maybe it's better that way) Lester Hey lightweight opinions! yeah! that's the ticket! you can change your mind with almost no overhead if nobody cares what you think anyway.
rec@dg.dg.com (Robert Cousins) (05/03/89)
In article <13089@paris.ics.uci.edu> roy@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (John M.A. Roy) writes: >In article <GRUNWALD.89May1131736@flute.cs.uiuc.edu>, grunwald@flute writes: >|Does anyone, other than Data General, make an 88K box *available now* that >|runs a reasonable UNIX (i.e. should be able to run Berkelyish code). Has > >FYI, my rumor mill has it the Data General is dropping the 88K as their >CPU and are going to MIPS. This is a pretty reliable source. > >John M.A. Roy (714) 856-5039 >ICS Dept., Univ. Calif., Irvine CA 92714 >Internet: roy@ics.uci.edu I can state unequivocally that this rumor is false. DG likes the 88K and plans on staying with it. Why would we want to change? Robert Cousins Dept. Mgr, Workstation Dev't Data General Corporation Speaking for myself alone.
rec@dg.dg.com (Robert Cousins) (05/03/89)
In article <521@biar.UUCP> trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) writes: >I for one would be interested in the phone number of the Data General 88K >folks. That developer's deal looks very nice, and I have a few benchmarks >I'd love to see run on the box. >Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc. ...!uunet!biar!trebor | trebor@biar.UUCP For those of you interested, the person to contact is named Sandy Friedman and he can be reached at (508)870-6764. He can provide all of the information you need or can direct you to the proper people. Robert Cousins Speaking for myself alone.
lord@se-sd.sandiego.ncr.com (Dave Lord) (05/04/89)
In article <13089@paris.ics.uci.edu> roy@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (John M.A. Roy) writes: >In article <GRUNWALD.89May1131736@flute.cs.uiuc.edu>, grunwald@flute writes: >| >|Does anyone, other than Data General, make an 88K box *available now* that >|runs a reasonable UNIX (i.e. should be able to run Berkelyish code). Has > >FYI, my rumor mill has it the Data General is dropping the 88K as their >CPU and are going to MIPS. This is a pretty reliable source. I can pretty much guarantee you that the 88K Maverick exists, is going to be sold, and if not already being shipped will be 'real soon'. I have had the oportunity to use said machine and I may or may not actually be in the process of developing software which will run on it. (I can't tell you everything now can I?) However, the machine works and seems to be customer ready. By the way, you didn't hear this from me. :-)
rec@dg.dg.com (Robert Cousins) (05/05/89)
In article <1916@se-sd.sandiego.ncr.com> lord@se-sd.sandiego.NCR.COM (Dave Lord(SSP)) writes: >In article <13089@paris.ics.uci.edu> roy@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (John M.A. Roy) writes: >>In article <GRUNWALD.89May1131736@flute.cs.uiuc.edu>, grunwald@flute writes: >>|Does anyone, other than Data General, make an 88K box *available now* that >>|runs a reasonable UNIX (i.e. should be able to run Berkelyish code). Has >>FYI, my rumor mill has it the Data General is dropping the 88K as their >>CPU and are going to MIPS. This is a pretty reliable source. Well, actually, this source wasn't reliable this time. Who was it? DG carefully reviewed the architectures of the major (and not so major) RISC products and decided that the 88K was superior for numerous reasons. It has scoreboarding which allows architectural freedom to change the implementation technology. It has multiprocessor features which makes DG/UX's multprocessor facilities really fly. In fact, it is not very obvious at all why someone would attempt to build a long term architecture on one of the other RISC platforms which doesn't support these features. >I can pretty much guarantee you that the 88K Maverick exists, is going >to be sold, and if not already being shipped will be 'real soon'. The product was announced in February. . . . >I have had the oportunity to use said machine and I may or may not >actually be in the process of developing software which will run on >it. (I can't tell you everything now can I?) However, the machine >works and seems to be customer ready. > >By the way, you didn't hear this from me. :-) Actually, The AViiON series is shipping to Design/Win customers and has been for some period of time. Third party software is being developed throughout the 88/Open on this hardware. It is even being used to develop the ABI validation suite! The hardware has been quite stable for a long time. (I have some very good people working for me! :-) Robert Cousins Dept. Mgr, Workstation Dev't Data General Corp. Speaking for myself alone.
ggw@wolves.UUCP (Gregory G. Woodbury) (05/09/89)
In <162@dg.dg.com> rec@dg.UUCP (Robert Cousins) wrote: > In article <1916@se-sd.sandiego.ncr.com> Dave Lord(SSP) writes: > >In article <13089@paris.ics.uci.edu> John M.A. Roy writes: > >>In article <GRUNWALD.89May1131736@flute.cs.uiuc.edu>, grunwald@flute writes: > >>|Does anyone, other than Data General, make an 88K box *available now* that > >>|runs a reasonable UNIX (i.e. should be able to run Berkelyish code). Has > > The product was announced in February. . . . > > >By the way, you didn't hear this from me. :-) I haven't seen anyone yet mention the Opus/Everex box. Opus makes UNIX co- processors for AT-bus machines that are pretty good. They are now shipping a 20MHz 88000 card w/20MB ram (model 417-20) and if you want an Everex 386 clone workstation underpinning it, they have the whole thing as the model 8040 "personal mainframe". (Enough quotes from their marketing hype) I happen to have one of these wonderful boxes sitting on my desk. 1st impression: very nice! Once I figured out what I had to do to get everthing and X windows and TCP/IP up and running (actually - the 8040s come with everything pre-loaded and configured) I transferred in my main numerical analysis application and ran my regression test. In the otherwise unloaded machine, the GOM benchmarked at 8.39 minutes, versus 21.4 minutes for a 30MHz Intergraph Clipper. This includes a mix of double precision floating point (a lot), periodic disk i/o (checkpointing) and the usual mix of character and integer calculations supporting the main d.p. loops. 2nd impression: still very nice! The X11 version software that I received was beta test and still has some problems, but its better than waiting for UNIX to access the "ultragraphics controller" for normal ascii i/o (really! clearing the screen takes a good 4-6 seconds!) Additionally, I managed to find a bug in the pcc compiler (with a work around) and a bug in the ftpd. Since I managed to snag the 1st 8040 that they shipped commercially, I guess that I deserve getting the "low serial number" problems - but that seems to be normal with us. Opus Tech Support is very responsive and says I'll get a new kernal in the next week or so. For a price (very steep) source support is available, but we are operating in a binary-only situation. 3rd impression: still very nice! More information as I glean it. BTW - the introductory price for this beast was around 28,000. 20MHz '386, 88000, 330 MB disk, ethernet, x-windows and Berkely Environment (over SysVr3.2). What a deal. The Usual disclaimers apply, I am not connected with Opus other than as a rather satisfied customer (6 machines and one more coming). -- Greg Woodbury, system programmer and admin (UNIX) Duke University Center for Demographic Studies UUCP: ...mcnc!duke!dukcds!wolves!ggw or ...mcnc!ecsgate!dukeac!wolves!ggw ^ this is my home machine Internet: ggw%dukcds@cs.duke.edu or ggw@dukeac.ac.duke.edu Voice: 919-493-1998 (home) 919-684-6126 (work) USMail: 902 A1 Park Ridge Rd. Durham NC 27713