- Something running, say, a 6502, 8080, 8085, or Z80. Definitely not
interested in anything post 8085.
Yes, you would be interested (possibly, not sure!) in the Altair 8800
re-make.
- Even if you did manage to get the money to build it, what software could
take advantage of it? The whole reason for parallel processing isn't the
"coolness" of it, it is because the person wants results faster. That
problem is much more easily achieved with a modern CPU.
Grandma doesn't need SSE3 (maybe you've seen a grandma with an IT degree,
though). I'm willing to try and see if a low end from nowadays is more
expensive to make than sixteen 286 or 32 Zilogs.
- A 32 CPU Z80 system might make for a cool demo and web page, but not much
more.
The real sales won't come from that :) The company would still sell dual
cores and such new things, but not exclusively. That's the idea.
Also, these remanufactured machines would be made so that you can actually
use them for a few tasks from today. You can decode MP3s with a 286, using a
hardware MPEG-2 decoder for the ISA bus, for example.
That's why I thought of putting more than one CPU in there. No other reason.
Takes away the coolness ? Maybe, but it's healthy to have more CPU power.
- and the drivers come from where?
Coders. Same as everybody else. Besides, when taking the technologies from
the original manufacturers, I would ask for the latest driver source files
as well. Also, for the drivers that don't exist (like monochrome graphics on
a Hercules video card for Windows NT family) I would need the specs and the
coder would do the rest.
- You think intel will give you the rights to manufacture old x86 designs?
or nvidia will care to unearth and hand over the 3dfx source code (chips,
drivers, test programs) because they think it would be a cool hack?
No, but because they would get some money for that. I'm looking for ways to
contact Intel Capital a bit more directly, to be honest. They have a lot of
the chips I need - USB 1.1 controllers, ISA hard drive controllers, a lot of
CPUs, etc. Nvidia simply managed to cut off the advancement of 3dfx cards
and rendered them obsolete. I wouldn't interfere with the modern product
line-up, just remake the old ones.
- It sounds like a far-fetched pipe dream to me. See if you can pull off
something on a smaller scale before you attempt to build grandiose systems.
What other systems have you designed, built, and brought to completion?
Quite! Yes, starting off with something that you can find the parts for
(like a dual core system) is probably easier. Other systems designed by me ?
I'm a guy with ideas, what you would call a producer. Not an engineer. I
understand this list is populated by very technical people so you might have
assumed I'm one of them, but I'm not.
However, the single most interesting question was this:
- Out of curiosity, are you talking about actually putting down 16 CPUs with
16 independent memory systems, or are you talking about some kind of large
FPGA with 16 CPUs on-board?
Oh God, thank you for my expert friend from Australia! Yes, Sir, he told me
how. Basically the 286 would use hardware expanded memory as the link within
a cluster of sixteen motherboards (out of which fifteen are identical, just
the CPU, RAM and chipset as far as I understood it, the last one having all
the other chips - graphics, sound, etc.) and the cluster would work as a
single, multi-CPU computer. Now, when it comes to the 386 and onwards,
these can address 4 GB of RAM. I wouldn't put 16 mobos in one cluster
with each of them having 4 GB of RAM. Instead, the northbridge would
probably be connected to a custom bus syncing all the CPUs. Something along
the lines of HyperThreading, which he said is something similar to non
uniform memory addressing. The point is, use the same amount of RAM for all
the CPUs. Like the difference between regular multi-CPU systems and regular
multi-core CPU systems. You probably know multi-CPU systems have their
memory "per-CPU" while the cores inside a multi-core CPU all use the same
system RAM.
- I think what you're talking about is either a reproduction or emulation.
I'm not natively English! :) I didn't use "refurbish" because I
didn't mean
refurbish, indeed. Reproduction is the most accurate term but what if the
inscriptions on the chips would be changed ? I think AMD changed their logo
since the 386 DX 40 MHz, didn't they ? Also, I would need two FPUs from
Cyrix, which are now owned by VIA. I would probably have to stamp VIA on
them, not Cyrix.
I think someone asked about 16-bit or 8-bit operating systems able to take
advantage of multi-CPU configurations. Yep, Linux can be coded, ReactOS can
be coded, FreeDOS can be coded for those purposes. I would think these are
enough. It's simple, not easy.
There is already an 8-bit "sort-of" Linux called Lunix:
http://hld.c64.org/poldi/lunix/lunix.html
There is already a 16-bit Linux called ELKS:
http://elks.sourceforge.net/
Extremely small market ? Again, there will be dual cores and quad cores and
everything. Computers "with a purpose" the contents of which the average
user won't know. He will simply know his needs are covered.
I'm just here to take the pulse of the classic computer community. You
apparently don't like the idea very much. The XKL Toad-1 is a huge beast for
what I have in mind. Cloning that one would be a major pain and it would be
very hard to ship to a buyer. 100 pounds including 40 pounds battery backup
? You gotta be kidding me.
But thank you for all your opinions. Any other comments you might have, I'll
be glad to read them. It can't hurt.