JP Hindin wrote:
Just picked up an nCUBE 2 from a list member, but I
know almost nothing
about the machine (beyond wikipedia and my own examination of the machine
physically). I have the Sun 4/470 that front-ends it and, in theory, all
the software. But I've got no idea on how to actually _use_ it.
Oooh, nice. I culled a ad for those from October 1989's issue of "What's new
in Computing" - sounded like a nice setup (up to 8192 processors, 60 billion
ips, 27 billion flops).
The ad also claimed that NCube would be releasing a SysV-based OS for it so
that it could "run UNIX apps" - which to my mind is different from it being a
bunch of slave processors with a separate machine running UNIX and acting as
the front-end. Perhaps that never actually happened - but are you sure that
your Sun is the machine interface, rather than just there as a diagnostic
console or something?
How physically large is it? Hard to tell from the picture in the ad that I
have, but with a max of around 8000 processors, I imagine it's a pretty hefty
beast.
cheers
Jules