Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!munnari.oz.au!cs.mu.oz.au!kre
From: kre@cs.mu.oz.au (Robert Elz)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Wanted: computer with fast context switching
Message-ID: <2977@munnari.oz.au>
Date: 7 Jan 90 17:21:52 GMT
Sender: news@cs.mu.oz.au
Lines: 25

Maybe someone out there has a solution to a problem...  I'm
looking for a computer system that can handle very large
numbers of executing processes .. none of which use that much
cpu time individually.

The system must run unix - BSD based ideally (or must have
BSD compatible networking).

Overall spead isn't all that crucial, a couple of vax mips would
probably be sufficient, but I'm looking to be running (constantly
when it matters) at a bsd style load average of over 50, perhaps
100.  While I'm doing that I don't want all of the available
processor and memory bandwidth used for the context switches.

I also don't want anything too expensive .. something that is
able to run 100 simultaneous processes well by supplying 25
processors, so each has to cope with only 4 context switches
a second is almost certainly going to be too expensive.

Finally, it must be something available now, not coming sometime
in the future.

Any sugegstions?

kre		kre@munnari.oz.au	uunet!munnari!kre