i860: Re: modern stuff

[Stefan Skoglund]

ons 2018-10-31 klockan 14:27 -0700 skrev Eric Korpela via cctalk:
> The i860 did find some use in the radio astronomy world.
> 
> Here's an excerpt from the 1998 annual report for the Arecibo
> Observatory...
> --------------
> Telescope pointing and realtime data acquisition are controlled using
> a
> network of VMEbus single-board computers running the VxWorks
> operating
> system kernel. Custom-built data acquisition devices (‘‘backends’’)
> include
> (1) a general purpose A/D system capable of sampling four analog
> channels
> at up to 10-MHz rates with programmable resolutions of 1 to 12 bits
> per
> sample per channel, (2) an ~interim! 50-MHz, 4096-lag Spectral Line
> Correlator with programmable bandwidth from 195 kHz to 50 MHz, (3) a
> 50-MHz
> Radar Decoder, ~4! a 100-MHz Spectral Line Correlator being
> developed, (5)
> a 10-MHz bandwidth Pulsar Search/Timing Machine with up to 256
> channels,
> and (6) a wideband continuum/polarimetry instrument being developed.
> An S2
> VLBI system is also available. Additional realtime signal processing
> capability is provided by four Skybolt i860-based VMEbus single-board
> computers with 240 MFLOPS peak combined capacity.
> --------------
> Remember when 240 MFLOPS was a lot?
> 

Was the 1983-84 year multibus sky floating point card the first
offering from Sky Computers ?

Did anyone use those in an embedded and online floating-point realtime
type of setting ? Or was they only used for off-line number-crunching ?

Hrrm, i now know that SKY computers had a dual-port memory system for
DEC LSI-11 computers (good if you have for example a really fast
accessory) so the FFP wasnt the first thing for them.