Re: Building Big Ass Linux Machine, what are the limits? (fwd)

Rick Bressler (rick.bressler@boeing.com)
Sun, 4 Oct 1998 23:24:00 -0700 (PDT)


> humm .. wouldn't building an SMP machine from non-SMP aware processors imply
> a lot of memory management logic for atomic test and set and such ?

Yup. In this case at least. Sequent use a LOT of custom IC's (built
all their own boards at this time.)

They added a LOT of cache logic to the boards. The very earliest
machines. (Based on an NCR chip, the 'Balance' series) actually had a
bit of memory on some device that they used for atomic operations, but
that all went out of the window when they switched to i386.

-- 
+--------------------------------------------+ Rick Bressler
|Mushrooms and other fungi have several      | 
|important roles in nature.  They help things|
|grow, they are a source of food, they       | bressler@mushroom.ca.boeing.com
|decompose organic matter and they           |
|infect, debilitate and kill organisms.      | Linux: Because a PC is a
+--------------------------------------------+ terrible thing to waste.

- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/