rwb@vi.ri.cmu.edu (Bob Berger) (10/08/90)
Will applications be able to download code to the i860 on the NextDimension? It would be nice to be able to use it as an 80 Mflop array processor as well as a graphics board. Will a development system be supported? Robert Berger rwb@vi.ri.cmu.edu
rlin@cs.ubc.ca (Robert Lin) (10/08/90)
In article <10685@pt.cs.cmu.edu> rwb@vi.ri.cmu.edu (Bob Berger) writes: > >Will applications be able to download code to the i860 on the NextDimension? > >It would be nice to be able to use it as an 80 Mflop array processor >as well as a graphics board. Will a development system be supported? > >Robert Berger >rwb@vi.ri.cmu.edu Assuming that the i860 is running Postscript, there's one very easy way to upload program to the i860. Do a def for a Postscript code, which sends the code to the Postscript interpretor under i860, and you can call that program fragment quite easily. Of course performance will not be optimum, being interpreted. Since the i860 has a bunch of memory (minimum 4M) and its expandable, yes, I'd say it'd be easy to upload i860 binaries for later execution. There's probably a flag for the C compiler to compile into i860 binaries. BTW, I hear that the i860 compiler technology is still in development stages. They say the code will speed uup by 20 to 40% once a super-optimized compiler, which analyzes pipelining of instructions and arranges all instructions in the best sequence. See Tao #7 (coming in two weeks?) for an article on the i860 processor. -Robert Lin <rlin@cs.ubc.ca>
rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) (10/12/90)
In article <10685@pt.cs.cmu.edu> rwb@vi.ri.cmu.edu (Bob Berger) writes: > >Will applications be able to download code to the i860 on the NextDimension? > >It would be nice to be able to use it as an 80 Mflop array processor >as well as a graphics board. Will a development system be supported? I wonder how busy the i860 is with doing 24-bit PostScript. It might turn out that it is too busy to make much sense to give it the additional burden of array processing. Would be cool though to have an 96002 add-on board that could use the ArrayProcessingKit and leave the 56001 free for sound processing. Ronald ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Bernhard Shaw | rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet