Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!mintaka!ogicse!emory!hubcap!dbradley
From: dbradley@gibson.ncsa.uiuc.edu (David Bradley)
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: Re: Alliant FX/2880
Message-ID: <8415@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 16 Mar 90 18:46:16 GMT
Sender: fpst@hubcap.clemson.edu
Lines: 17
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu

So what are the architectural differences between an FX/2800 and a
"conventional" shared memory MIMD system like an Encore or Sequent?
Based on the posting by Phil Neray, they appear to be the following:

	- Faster processors
	- Bigger memory and cache
	- Processors connected to memory via crossbar rather than
	  bus.  (Or does the crossbar connect the processors 
	  and cache?  This was ambiguous in the Neray's posting.)
	- Special "hardware-based concurrency control instructions".

So from a hardware standpoint the machine is just like a really fast Encore
or Sequent, right?  Or am I missing something?  Of course the software sounds
pretty cool, especially the cluster scheduling.
--
	David Bradley
	University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign