Multithreaded hardware (LispMs) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

24 Jun 2007

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 Message: 29
 Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 07:38:46 -0400
 From: Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com>
 Subject: Re: Multithreaded hardware 
 To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
 	<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
 Message-ID: <200706241138.l5OBckR7029888 at mwave.heeltoe.com>

 I believe the Symbolics 3600 has support for multiple tasks in hardware
 at the microcode level.  Unfortunately internals of the 3600 are hard to
 come by, but I keep digging. 

 (I found someone the other day who worked on a "lisp risc machine" FPGA at
 Symbolics.  He says he may have some tapes... :-)

 -brad
    Symbolics last hardware products used a sort of lisp-machine-on-a-chip 
developed for use inside ATM networking gear (AT&T, maybe?).  I think 
that may be what the "Zora" was.  Google's not being very helpful on 
this one.  My memory's not that good, and whatever I originally read was 
apocryphal at best.

I could be wrong, but I think the NXP1000 (the final, headless 
workstation) used a similar chipset after the other project fizzled.

The only relevant link I can find is 
http://www.sts.tu-harburg.de/~r.f.moeller/symbolics-info/zora/zora.html

If you find out anything interesting from your acquaintance with the 
tapes, you had better post it.