Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!beta!hc!hi!cyrus
From: cyrus@hi.unm.edu (Tait Cyrus)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: kit wishlist and software
Message-ID: <23506@hi.unm.edu>
Date: 23 Feb 88 05:45:12 GMT
References: <880@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <177@anumb.UUCP> <585@naucse.UUCP> <1006@ur-tut.UUCP>
Reply-To: cyrus@hi.unm.edu (Tait Cyrus)
Organization: U. of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Lines: 58
Keywords: 32k kit, cheap unix.


I have read with interest the comments about a 32xxx box.  Well, here 
at the University of New Mexico, in conjunction with Los Alamos
National Labs, we are building a hypercube using the 32xxx.  Specifically,
each node of the cube consists of:

	I/O engine
		-32016 plus MMU, ICU, FPA
		-local PROM(128k)
		-local RAM (128k)
		-2 RS232 ports
		-1 SMD (maybe even HSMD) disk interface; we
		 are using the NS8466 Disk Data Controller chip
		-1 ethernet interface; we are using the AMD 7990 LANCE
		-6 high speed links (hypercube links) using the DMA
		 controller.
		-8 Megs of shared memory (shared with the compute engine)
	Compute engine:
		-32032 plus MMU, ICU, FPA
		-local PROM(128k)
		-local RAM (128k)
		-1 RS232 port (debugging)
		-8 Megs of shared memory (shared with the I/O engine)

We are currently porting GENIX to our hardware.
To those of you who have suggested using GENIX, I would say DO NOT
USE IT.  Namely, the GENIX C compiler, along with GENIX itself,
uses external procedures (i.e. cxp, rxp, lxp, etc) which is VERY
VERY VERY VERY............ SLOW.  It is my understand that the NS
SYSV, though, does NOT use the external procedure stuff which will
make it a lot faster than GENIX.

Unfortunately only two people are working on the hardware and one on
the software.  We are still working out some minor bugs with the
disk controller as well as some intermittent ethernet problems (each
of our boards are wire wrapped with a total of about 4,000 wires
and I wonder why we have intermittent problems :-)  Our current
design is on a full size VME card (SUN sized).

I wish I could offer our board, but since it is not stable yet, and
probably won't be for a couple more months, I can't.  I will, though,
offer my services and expertise (if you can call it that) with any
hardware design questions that might come up.

We would like to go to the 32532 in our next iteration of our design
for both our I/O and compute engines so I would be interested in
in any 32532 designs.

-- 
    @__________@    W. Tait Cyrus   (505) 277-0806
   /|         /|    University of New Mexico
  / |        / |    Dept of Electircal & Computer Engineering 
 @__|_______@  |       Parallel Processing Research Group (PPRG)
 |  |       |  |       UNM/LANL Hypercube Project
 |  |  hc   |  |    Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131
 |  @.......|..@    
 | /        | /     e-mail:      
 @/_________@/        cyrus@hc.dspo.gov