burgoyne@eng.umd.edu (John R. Burgoyne) (10/26/90)
Not a 100% MS windows post, please tolerate. Is anybody else out there interested in the I860 & I960? Does anyone own and use one? Prices? Will they ever be mainstream on mid to high end PCs? What hardware other than the "wizard" is out there? Will the next version of the MS C Compiler and/or the SDK contain the tools which will enable your program to instruct and use this processor? Intel people or Microsofties, please comment. I can think of some incredible software which can be written for windows on the PC using the I860 & I960. How about some ideas of what people would like to do with windows and one of these babies? Robert *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* | Robert Burgoyne CALCE Center for Electronics Packaging | | Industrial Liaison University of Maryland | | burgoyne@eng.umd.edu College Park, MD 20742 | | (301)-405-5323 | | Compu$erve: 76234,2425 | | | | "Improving the quality of electronics hardware through software | | development and research into physics of failure models." | | | | I speak for myself, CALCE has enough people speaking for it already. | *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl) (10/26/90)
burgoyne@eng.umd.edu (John R. Burgoyne) writes: >Not a 100% MS windows post, please tolerate. >Is anybody else out there interested in the I860 & I960? Does >anyone own and use one? Prices? Will they ever be mainstream on mid >to high end PCs? I hear that Dell uses the i960 for controlling their drive arrays for their new tower machines. >I can think of some incredible software which can be written for >windows on the PC using the I860 & I960. How about some ideas of >what people would like to do with windows and one of these babies? I'm probably getting in over my head here, but I was just talking to a coworker about what I'd like to see in a new high-end PC. What I'd like is an EISA based PC with a i486 and and i860. I want to run Windows on the i486 and Unix on the i860 concurrently with communications between the two. I want to be able to read news and be connected to Internet on the Unix side and run office productivity software under Windows on the DOS side. I would need to be able to move information from Unix to DOS and vice versa. The interface would need to be very smooth and fast. I don't know if this is practical or even possible, but it sure would make my job a lot easier. I'm one of those unfortunate people who has one foot in the Unix world and one in the PC world. When I'm on Unix, I miss all the nice office productivity stuff and when I'm on DOS, I miss the great connectivity I get with Unix. I want it all! -- Marshall L. Buhl, Jr. EMAIL: marshall@seri.gov Senior Computer Missionary VOICE: (303)231-1014 Wind Research Branch 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401-3393 Solar Energy Research Institute Solar - safe energy for a healthy future
bdlepla@caen.engin.umich.edu (Bryan Dennis Lepla) (10/27/90)
In article <marshall.656957399@wind55>, marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl) writes: > burgoyne@eng.umd.edu (John R. Burgoyne) writes: > > > I'm probably getting in over my head here, but I was just talking to a > coworker about what I'd like to see in a new high-end PC. > > What I'd like is an EISA based PC with a i486 and and i860. I want to > run Windows on the i486 and Unix on the i860 concurrently with > communications between the two. > Hi Net Users! In the Byte Extra Issue (IBM Special Edition, Volume 15, Number 11), on page 11, there is an ad for a motherboard with both an i486 and i860 cleverly called the 4860 motherboard. Some specs: 4M of ram (xpand to 64M) shared by both processors 8 EISA slots, 64-bit expansion slot, 1 parallel, 2 serial ports The Company is called Hauppauge Computer Works -- | Bryan D. LePla |"Now your life's no longer empty. | | bdlepla@caen.engin.umich.edu | Surely Heaven waits for you! | | 6tcm@ub.cc.umich.edu | Carry on my wayword son. | | The University of Michigan | There'll be peace when you are done."| | Ann Arbor, Michigan | Kansas | May God's Peace be with you!
wbeebe@bilver.UUCP (Bill Beebe) (10/29/90)
In article <1990Oct26.052223.14642@eng.umd.edu> burgoyne@eng.umd.edu (John R. Burgoyne) writes: > >Not a 100% MS windows post, please tolerate. > >Is anybody else out there interested in the I860 & I960? Does >anyone own and use one? Prices? Will they ever be mainstream on mid >to high end PCs? You can by a Haupage motherboard with a i486 and i860 with 4/8 megs of memory and both processors running fully symetrically. Price is around $6000 US. The i960 is an embedded processor, and is pitched at the mid-to-high end laser printer market. It has also found its way into the military and commercial avionics market. On the mility side the i960 and the MIPS R3000 are the mandated embedded 32-bit processors of choice. The i960 brings nothing to the party that the i386/i486 do not already provide. The only i960 family variant that matches the i486 is the i960KB with built-in FPU. If you want the MMU that the 386/486 has, as well as FPU, then you must use the military i960MC, which costs #2000 US each. The i960MC is designed to support Ada in critical missions. The i860 was originally code named the N10, as was originally targeted as a peripheral to the i486 (with its hard-ware support for graphics and very fast fp math). For a more in-depth discussion of the pros and cons of the i860 and i960, I recommend comp.arch. Coding the i860 and i960 is not for the faint hearted. Intel sells expensive development boards that run on the AT bus. Unless something happens at Comdex/Fall, I sincerely doubt the i860 will wind up as the replacement for VGA any time soon. There are better, far cheaper alternatives to the i860 (such as the TI 34020(32-bit)/34010(16-bit) graphics processors). >I can think of some incredible software which can be written for >windows on the PC using the I860 & I960. How about some ideas of I can too, using arrays of Moto 88000s or Inmos transputers. However I have the luxury of a company which can buy me these things. The vast majority of folks who can scrap up enough for a decent Win 3.0 platform would be sorely pressed to justify the thousand of dollars required to get any of these nose-bleed high-end engines.
lhughes@b11.ingr.com (Lawrence Hughes) (10/30/90)
I am just about to complete putting together a system based on the Hauppauge 4860 board (the PC that ate Chicago....) - just a few comments on it: 1. The board looks very nice - and works quite well (at least the 486 side does - will shortly be able to try out the 860 side) 2. It has both a 486 and i860 (both running at 25 MHz - suspect they will have 33/33 MHz version soon), and up to 64 MB of DRAM that can be addressed by either processor - although you can only populate 16M with currently available 36-bit JEDEC SIMMs - still kinda pricy, too - gotta use 36-bit wide due to board design, and in pairs, at that - board has a 64-bit bus and DRAM pool. 3. While you can boot DOS on the 486 side (all I've been able to do so far), there are NO tools or support i860 access for DOS/Windows/OS2 or any other non-UNIX system - they have implemented something called APX that cohabits with UNIX V/386 and allows loading/running/debugging of basically UNIX aps on the 860 side. You can get cross 860 C, assembler and linker from either Metaware (as we did) or from Greenhills, that run on UNIX V/386 and load and run via APX. 4. They also have a really nice sounding EISA frame buffer, 32 bit x 1 MPixel (i.e. about 1184 x 884), which requires a pretty fancy monitor. It is about $2000, if I recall. Ours should arrive within 2 weeks (just now starting to ship). 5. The total cost of this system (4860, 16M, frame buffer, 330 MB SCSI drive, VGA + monitor, 60 MB cart tape, Intel UNIX V/386, APX, C/860, etc.) is up to about $18K - still good deal compared to Intel 860 development system (386 system with plug-in 860 board) at $25K... 6. I will be mostly working with this system under UNIX/APX, and will be bringing up X windows ASAP - but I have thought about what a socko Win 3 system the 860/frame buffer would make... Basically, this is still not a system for the novice, but if you speak UNIX and can eat microsoft DDKs for breakfast, you might be able to use it to do some Win 3 stuff... on the other hand, I'm rather impressed with the 860 so far, and am willing to bet that within 3-4 years the 486/860 combo will be as common as the 386/387 today... maybe sooner if some bright guy comes up with good tools and mechanisms to harness some of that power (half a Cray I?) from DOS/Win3... I think Hauppauge has done a great service to the industry by doing pioneering work like this - hope their bet pays off... support 'em! Hope this gives anyone interested a little better idea of what's happening on the 860 front... as for the 960, forget this little fella unless you have a real interest in embedded controllers - not really a general purpose CPU... Wanna talk disk controllers? laser printer controllers? robotics? look into the 960. Wanna talk turbo-charged DOS/UNIX systems? stick with the 860. As for running DOS on 486 and UNIX on 860 on same box... good luck... not real likely.. on the other hand, a multi-processing UNIX that runs on both 860 and 486, and can support DOS virtual environments under UNIX... now you're talking! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lawrence E. Hughes | ASK MR. MATH - He knows MORE than you do! Remember, Intergraph Corp. CR1100 | He's not a REAL Doctor: "I have a Bachelor's Degree, Huntsville, AL 35984 | in MATH!" * uunet!ingr!b11!lhughes * (205) 730-4167