Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!dptcdc!berner!lethe!dave
From: dave@lethe.UUCP (Dave Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: One aspect of bandwidth (backplane bus)
Summary: reinventing the mainframe...
Message-ID: <2222@lethe.UUCP>
Date: 18 Apr 89 00:37:51 GMT
References: <407@bnr-fos.UUCP> <17500@obiwan.mips.COM> <17527@winchester.mips.COM> <17298@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: dave@lethe.UUCP (Dave Collier-Brown)
Organization: Outerleaf, news courtesy of Systems Software
Lines: 24

In article <17298@cup.portal.com> bcase@cup.portal.com (Brian bcase Case) writes:
| Though it's done for different reasons, Macintosh is a sign of times to
| come:  all the (high-speed) main memory is "special," and is right next
| to the CPU/cache.  What do you do for multiprocessors? Build that ECL bus
| and charge several $million.

  Well, sort of.
  You do charge several millions, but you don't so much build a bus as
you do a star, with the memory in the middle and the processors out on
the arms.  The thing in the middle is called a system controller on a 'bun
and costs a non-trivial amount of money.

  One of my dear friends still works on Honeywells and regularly gets
into uncontrolled snickering fits when the magazine-types start talking
about bus minis replacing mainframes because they have so many more more 
mips...

--dave (who worked for HW before all the Bull) c-b

-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | {toronto area...}lethe!dave
72 Abitibi Ave.,      |  Joyce C-B:
Willowdale, Ontario,  |     He's so smart he's dumb.
CANADA. 223-8968      |