Is their a possibility that any of the currently available and speculative ppc boards could work as co-processors on our Pegasos' ?

I know that without the Q-box support it would probably be hard to do in Mos, but what about linux or the future versions of Bsd?

any thoughts?

Using PowerPC on PCI?

Shark is vapour :D

Quote:

Sure but there are many Mac PPC PCI cards outhere.



[ Edited by DJBase on 2004/7/6 10:41 ]

Not only Mac PPC PCI cards, but MANY in general. just do a google for them. Lots of them out for all types of applcations. I've seen a few PC types use them and run linux off of it as a security server for NT and Win2k servers. Neat stuff.

@ timofonic,


?? Havent't you heard of processor cards with their own memory to increase the speed and overcome bus limitations... me would think you have never heard of a cyberstorm....

... I know that the shark may be Vapour, but it is the idea and capability I am interested in learning about.... also we all know that Elbox is using a reference board for their shark design any ways.

@ everyone else...

has anyone experimented with one of these pci cards with linux on their Pegs...? For rendering or even Dnetc one of these cards could help the MOS team until we get our dual Processor cards

Quote:

It wouldnt help because it will goes to the Linux/PPC not to MorphOS/PPC.

@ DJBase

Dnetc would help the Pegasos Team!!!

...

But Dnetc was not the question only an easy observation:

Has anyone tried using one of these cards?

if so I would like to know what apps you ran and how well it
worked as a co-processor.

... also of note if the cards worked well with linux it may be worth
the effort to try to support them thru Mos. Just like the effort
underway at bplan with linking multiple pegs thru mos.

Thanks,

Oh NO, we don't want this coprocessors again.
Either real SMP or stick with one CPU.

by Wishmaster on 2004/7/7 13:46:56

Oh NO, we don't want this coprocessors again.
Either real SMP or stick with one CPU.
--------------------------------------------------------

I Wholeheartedly agree!!! SMP is the way to go, but at the same time I bought my peg not just because of Mos, I bought it because of the many options that are being developed for the Pegasos II, both hardware and software.

Imagine this:

Pegasos II+

Marvell Discovery III northbridge
- this adds more bandwith between the cpu and northbridge
- full speed support for DDR 333/400 memory

Dual Motorola 7447a @ 1.4 Ghz
Dual Gigabit Ethernet


... and on the south end...

Via 8235 or 8237
-USB 2.0
-ATA 133 ...etc... just check out the specs for either of these chipsets.

All the above is possible. Most of the above hardware already exists in some form.

Now imagine I have a Pegasos PPC linux cluster that is running a program that heavily depends on Altivec? Their is no PegII+ or Dual 7447 processor card available yet. Why not add an additional PCI ppc card ( or up to 3!!) to the machine to add to the overall ability, yes Pci is not the ideal for running a processor, but most of these cards come with onboard memory which minimizes the performance blow that pci does when processing large data Sets. Am I the only one who can see the possibilities this could open in the embedded or communications market?

The Pegasos II has only been on the market for a little over six months and is a solid piece of hardware. Imagine the possibilities...

katos1

Well having more then one CPU is fine and all (I have 2 in my Mac G5) but in a Pegasos with MorphOS its not much good for anything now. We would need the OS to be coded for support, and then software needs support as well. Even in a Dual Powermac the two CPUs dont get used in normal everyday apps if they are not coded to support them.

@ ascii

Fully understood, thats partly why my hypothetical question mentions a nameless app that needs Altivec and would thrive on multiple processors wether clustered or smp.

katos1