Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!pacbell!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!SUN.COM!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis@SUN.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Does the Apollo DN10000 Exist?
Message-ID: <8804012353.AA03028@pepper.sun.com>
Date: 1 Apr 88 23:53:36 GMT
References: <1772@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: cmcmanis@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 41

In article <1772@ssc-vax.UUCP> benoni@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) writes:
>I am interested in knowing if the Apollo DN1000 exists outside
>of the labs...(or even in the lab) ... is it going through
>beta testing...alpha testing...

I too would be really interested in getting a definitive answer on this
question. After reading through the PRISM blurbs it looks like there is
some neat technology possibilities, unfortunately NO ONE I have talked to
knows anything about this machine (there are Apollo people). The Wall Street
Journal and other less reliable reports seem to indicate that the 10000 was
nothing more than a neat idea in someone's head. I can't believe that 
this entire announcement was based entirely on simulations and speculations
of probable performance, assuming someone could build the thing. 

Some questions that I would like to have answered (if answers exist I guess).

The 4 way interleaved cache for the four processors, is it a virtual address
cache or straight physical address cache ?

The glossies seem to indicate a dual floating/integer architecture on
the processors (each word being half floating point and half integer). 
Does this mean that if you are doing only integer things that you waste
half of the processor? Or can it become a dual integer processor ? 

Are there any relevent papers I could look up on the architecture? Will
there be some at the summer Usenix? How about at the ACM OS conference? 

What kind of cycle times does main memory see, and how does DMA affect
performance? 

Is the new UNIX like OS multithreaded? Can you split processes on the 
processors? How does your software compare to the Ardent Titan's vectorizing
compilers? Can you run MACH on it?

When is the absolute earliest date someone could buy one of these machines?


-- 
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.