Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!steinmetz!sunset!oconnor From: oconnor@sunset.steinmetz (Dennis M. O'Connor) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Longer quote, RPM-40 performance Message-ID: <9732@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> Date: 29 Feb 88 19:28:17 GMT References: <9689@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> Sender: news@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP Reply-To: sunset!oconnor@steinmetz.UUCP Organization: GE Corporate R&D Center Lines: 47 Keywords: DAIS, 14 MIPS, General Electric An article by mash@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey) says: ] In article <...> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: ] >In article <...> sunset!oconnor@steinmetz.UUCP writes: ] >| Your dead on target. RPM40 is NOT a VAX-killer or SUN competitor. Here ] >| at GE, we don't compare Massey-Fergussen 1500-horsepower tractors to ] >| nitrobenzene-burning top-fuel funny cars. ] > ] >Mind you, there are some of us who would like this chip in a ] >workstation, but it would have to be done in quantity to keep the cost ] >of the chipset down. ] ] I assume this must be humorous: it is obvious that this architecture was ] designed to be a microcontroller, to run limited-size, embedded, ] and definitely, non-UNIX applications. It seems OK for that purpose, ] but it obviously wasn't built for running UNIX or large applications ] (and there's nothing wrong with that). ] -- ] -john mashey DISCLAIMER: Uh, gee, I don't know. Seems to me it has everything it needs to support UNIX. It supports page faults, has a secure (we hope) supervisor mode, some built-in address space management, a 8 gigabyte total address space, software traps ... gee, just about everything a 68010 has, even vectored interupts. What specifically does it lack that indicates it wasn't built for UNIX ? What it wasn't was OPTIMIZED for UNIX. It's OPTIMIZED for the embedded computing environment. You know, like BM/CCC and cruise missiles. Like AEGIS, SUBACS, Star Wars, and that stuff. Not trivial, you bet. Calling it a microcontroller, well, that seems kind unfair. It may not be able to run UNIX as fast as another 40MIPS machine that was more UNIX-oriented, true. :-) But the minimum functionality to support a multi-tasking operating system is there. Mainly because we think that the embedded world may head this way. Someday. When Ada compilers can be trusted, I guess. LIMITED SIZE ? Well, for now, maybe, but there's no reason that eventually the entire 8 gigabytes of space afforded by the architecture cant be (at least virtually) available. Well, I guess now that you mention it, 8 gigabytes IS a limit. :-) If I didn't put enough smileys in this, please add your own. :-) -- Dennis O'Connor UUNET!steinmetz!sunset!oconnor ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa (-: The Few, The Proud, The Architects of the RPM40 40MIPS CMOS Micro :-)