Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!ogicse!intelhf!ichips!iwarp.intel.com!intelisc!iSC.intel.com!cfj
From: cfj@iSC.intel.com (Charlie Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Anything wrong with the i860
Message-ID: <1338@intelisc.isc.intel.com>
Date: 9 May 91 14:43:16 GMT
References: <1991May7.145407.18417@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@isc.intel.com
Reply-To: cfj@iSC.intel.com (Charlie Johnson)
Organization: Intel Corporation
Lines: 28
Nntp-Posting-Host: spike

In article <1991May7.145407.18417@midway.uchicago.edu>, rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert) writes:
|> I have seen relatively little about the i860 chip on this newsgroup.
|> Also, compared to MIPS, it doesn't seem to be very popular as the
|> base processor for computers;  Alliant uses it in their shared-memory
|> machines (800 & 2800), Intel has the Touchstone experimental mpp machine,
|> and the i860 seems popular as a graphics coprocessor (e.g. in the NeXt),
|> but generally, I see surprisingly little interest in the chip.
|> 
|> Is there something wrong with the architecture?  As a platform,
|> what are its advantages and disadvantages over the competition?
|> I am particularly interested in this, as I am thinking of buying
|> an Alliant F/800; I did a lot of benchmarks, and the performance
|> seems extremely good compared to other RISC architectures (even
|> on a per-processor basis running on throughput rather than
|> parallelization), so I'm wondering if there isn't some "catch"
|> I haven't encountered yet.
|> .

Intel sells the iPSC/860 which is not an experimental machine.  It is a
supported product which has up to 128 i860s.

-- 
Charles Johnson
Intel Corporation
Supercomputer Systems Division
MS CO1-01
15201 NW Greenbrier Pkwy
Beaverton, OR  97006           phone: (503)629-7605  email: cfj@ssd.intel.com