High performance coprocessor boards of the 80s and 90s - was Re: SGI ONYX

[Jules Richardson]

On 04/21/2016 09:51 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
> On 04/21/2016 07:04 AM, Jules Richardson wrote:
>> On 04/20/2016 10:00 AM, Toby Thain wrote:
>>> Nice collection. I'd forgotten about the 32016! What software ran on these
>>> respective processors?
>>
>> OS-wise the 32016 ran something called Panos, with Pandora as the
>> firmware - mostly written in Modula-2.  Acorn (working with Logica)
>> attempted a Xenix port, and some documentation references Xenix as being
>> available, but I don't think it was ever released; having to run all the
>> I/O across the Tube interface just proved to be too much of a bottleneck.
>>
> I'm pretty sure I ran both Genix and then Xenix on the Logical
> Microcomputer Co. 32016 we bought.

Oh, I'm sure there were ports around which used that particular CPU. But 
within the context of Acorn's co-processor, I've never seen evidence that 
Xenix ever saw the light of day. I do have some internal company documents 
which suggest that they were having some terrible performance issues with 
the port though, so it was certainly attempted...

Jules