Beowulf in a Box

[Bob Drzyzgula]

On Sun, Sep 27, 1998 at 08:15:59PM -0400, Kragen wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Sep 1998, Bob Drzyzgula wrote:
> > moving bits across the PCI bus itself.
> 
> Well, broadcasting and multicasting are, I think, possible over
> Ethernet, but not over PCI.  Also, AFAIK, the PCI switches you speak of
> are vaporware at the moment, while Fast Ethernet switches are not.
> 
> Kragen

So, here I'm confused. This board that is being discussed
is using PCI as an interconnect, right? And the I2O
protocols are being used as the basis for a TCP/IP
implementation? Now, I know very little about I2O -- is
I2O only point-to-point? How would a broadcast work
on one of these eight-SA110 boards if PCI doesn't
allow for broadcast?

Both PCI switches and this board are currently vapor,
although it seems that an attempt to assemble these
SA-110 boards may be soon and I haven't identified anyone
attempting to build a PCI switch, only a ring. Still,
there could easily be several iterations before all the
timing and software issues are worked out to the point that
the SA-110 boards can be stamped out and sold in volume;
few new circuits of this complexity are fully functional
on the first try, I would suspect. Until that time, it
seems to me that in this thread we are discussing what
might be and not what is. Or have I missed something?

--Bob

-- 
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Bob Drzyzgula                             It's not a problem
bob@drzyzgula.org                until something bad happens
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