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From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.nfs,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Incremental sync()s and using disk idle time
Message-ID: <ZU=9R=8@xds13.ferranti.com>
Date: 15 Mar 91 01:27:45 GMT
References: <28975@cs.yale.edu> <PCG.91Feb28195347@odin.cs.aber.ac.uk> <1991Mar12.202238.19586@zoo.toronto.edu> <3254@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <19838@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 23

Here we're talking about putting file systems in smart processors. How about
putting other stuff there?

	Erase and kill processing.	(some PC smart cards do this,
					 as did the old Berkeley Bussiplexer)
	Window management.		(all the way from NeWS servers
					 with Postscript in the terminal,
					 down through X terminals and Blits,
					 to the 82786 graphics chip)
	Network processing.		(Intel, at least, is big on doing
					 lots of this in cards, to the point
					 where the small memory on the cards
					 becomes a problem... they do tend
					 to handle high network loads nicely)
	Tape handling.			(Epoch-1 "infinite storage" server,
					 etc...)

What else? The Intel 520 has multiple 80186 and 80286 CPUs on its smart
CPU cards, and seems to do quite an impressive job for a dinky little
CISC based machine.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  `-_-'  peter@ferranti.com
+1 713 274 5180.  'U`  "Have you hugged your wolf today?"