[comp.sys.encore] Mach on Encore

cyrus@pprg.unm.edu (Tait Cyrus) (09/18/89)

I need to get a version of Mach running on several Encores (32332).

I am aware that Encore has their own version of Mach, but they
want big bucks which I do not have so Encore's version of Mach
is not an option, unless they are willing to let us have it for
a reasonable cost.

Does anyone have a version of Mach from CMU running on their
Encore?  Also, does Mach for an Encore support NFS and the latest 
Van Jacobson network enhancements?

Thanks in advance.

W. Tait Cyrus   (505) 277-0806          e-mail: cyrus@pprg.unm.edu
University of New Mexico
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Parallel Processing Research Group
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131

boykin@calliope.Encore.COM (Joseph Boykin) (09/18/89)

In article <24928@pprg.unm.edu> cyrus@pprg.unm.edu (Tait Cyrus) writes:
>I need to get a version of Mach running on several Encores (32332).
>
>I am aware that Encore has their own version of Mach, but they
>want big bucks which I do not have so Encore's version of Mach
>is not an option, unless they are willing to let us have it for
>a reasonable cost.

I'm not sure what you define as "big bucks".  The price
of Encore MACH is $1,000.00.

>Does anyone have a version of Mach from CMU running on their
>Encore?  Also, does Mach for an Encore support NFS and the latest 
>Van Jacobson network enhancements?

Encore is the only place you can get MACH for the Multimax.  CMU
only distributes for the VAX, SUN and IBM PC/RT.  By the beginning
of next year, the won't even be doing that as there is a contract
with Mt. Xinu to take over distribution.  This makes sense since
CMU is interested in doing OS research, not making tapes.

The primary distinction between our release of MACH and CMU's
is that we have parallelized the File System, Network, Tty, etc.
subsystems within the kernel.  The CMU distribution would provide
a master/slave relationship for any of these functions.  To be
blunt, performance on a multi-processor without these changes is
pretty bad.  If you've used Umax, you'll find that Encore's MACH
has interactive response time which is pretty much equivalent.

Re: NFS:  The current release is server-only.  That is, you can
mount a Multimax partition from your workstation, but not vice-versa.
This is done with a user-level daemon process.  Our version 0.6
will be based on CMU release 2.5 of MACH and will include in-kernel
client and server NFS support.

Re: Network code.  We're using a parallelized version of the 4.3-tahoe
network code, but we don't have some of the 'experimental' VJ code
which has not yet been put into 4.3 (at least to my knowledge!).

If you want to order MACH, contact your favorite salesman; they'll
be more than happy to take your money!

----

Joe Boykin
Encore Computer Corp
Vice-Chair, IEEE Computer Societies'
    Technical Activities Board

Internet: boykin@encore.com
UUCP: encore!boykin