Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!petunia!news From: mdeale@vega.acs.calpoly.edu (Myron (the one in Calif.) Deale) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: RISC Coprocessor Boards -- Let The Market Place Decide Message-ID: <269b5663.3a8b@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> Date: 11 Jul 90 16:40:03 GMT References: Reply-To: mdeale@vega.acs.calpoly.edu.UUCP (Myron Deale) Distribution: comp.sys.next Organization: ACS, Cal Poly, San Luis Lines: 26 In article ramsdell@mitre.org writes: >In article <112780@linus.mitre.org> ramsdell@mitre.org writes: >>It seems that NeXT is committed to the use of antiquated CPU's. > >[1] It makes little sense to replace the CPU of a NeXT Computer when >instead you can simply add a CPU. Is that not one of the advantages >of using Mach as your kernel? Why does the mother board have to >have the major processing power? > [stuff deleted] >John Yeah! Why indeed? It'd be nice to have access to some of that RISC stuff. However if the 040 could off-load all the screen re-draw to a coprocessor and have an upgraded DSP chip handle the array processing (not to mention I/O) ... and the 040 already looks promising. This extra silicon doesn't show up in the box scores though (ie. Dhrystones, etc. ) and marketing has a hard time selling such. Excellent question, though I may be putting a different stress on it. Time to read up on threads and distributed processing. -Myron