Intel I860

Intel I860

[Achim Krümmel]

Hi,

I have to setup a fast Linux Server for a database application.
I would like to use a Mainboard for 2 Pentium4 CPUs for this.
I found such a board with a Intel I860 chip. Is this chip
supported by the current Kernel v2.4.14 or will I get problems
with this board and Linux?

many thanks,

   Achim Kruemmel

Re: Intel I860

[Randy.Dunlap]

Achim Krümmel wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have to setup a fast Linux Server for a database application.
> I would like to use a Mainboard for 2 Pentium4 CPUs for this.
> I found such a board with a Intel I860 chip. Is this chip
> supported by the current Kernel v2.4.14 or will I get problems
> with this board and Linux?

I haven't seen any other replies, so here goes.

You should have no problem using the 860 chipset AFAIK
[but I don't have such a system :(  ].

There are still some issues with interrupt balancing on SMP
P4 systems.  Last I heard, all interrupts will be routed
to one CPU instead of [mostly] balanced between them
(until this is fixed/patched).

HTH.
~Randy

Re: Intel I860

[n0ano]

Achim-

Uh, what exactly do you think you have here?  The I860 was a
completely new architecture that Intel dropped over 5 years
ago.  I've got one running Unix SVR4 in my basement but you
can't buy an I860 motherboard today.

(For the record the 860 was a great architecture for the time
and I'm still bitter that Intel dropped it but that's a different
story.)

On Thu, Nov 22, 2001 at 03:43:37PM +0100, Achim Krümmel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have to setup a fast Linux Server for a database application.
> I would like to use a Mainboard for 2 Pentium4 CPUs for this.
> I found such a board with a Intel I860 chip. Is this chip
> supported by the current Kernel v2.4.14 or will I get problems
> with this board and Linux?
> 
> many thanks,
> 
>    Achim Kruemmel
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-- 
Don Dugger
"Censeo Toto nos in Kansa esse decisse." - D. Gale
n0ano@indstorage.com
Ph: 303/652-0870x117

Re: Intel I860

[Josh Fryman]

i believe he's referring to the 860 chipset, as in intel
810, ..., 840, 850, 860 ... the chipset that glues it all 
together, not the i860 processor.

and it's supported fine.  i've got a couple running.

-josh

Re: Intel I860

[Stefan Smietanowski]

Hi.

> Uh, what exactly do you think you have here?  The I860 was a
> completely new architecture that Intel dropped over 5 years
> ago.  I've got one running Unix SVR4 in my basement but you
> can't buy an I860 motherboard today.
> 
> (For the record the 860 was a great architecture for the time
> and I'm still bitter that Intel dropped it but that's a different
> story.)
> 
> On Thu, Nov 22, 2001 at 03:43:37PM +0100, Achim Krümmel wrote:
> 
>>Hi,
>>
>>I have to setup a fast Linux Server for a database application.
>>I would like to use a Mainboard for 2 Pentium4 CPUs for this.
>>I found such a board with a Intel I860 chip. Is this chip
>>supported by the current Kernel v2.4.14 or will I get problems
>>with this board and Linux?

Intel 860 is the chipset used by the Xeon line of CPUs from Intel. Xeon 
aka Pentium 4 Xeon, the high end, MP version of the Pentium4 CPU.

No, nobody starts with me about differences and the definition of high 
end. :)

// Stefan

Re: Intel I860

[David Weinehall]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 03:28:03PM -0700, n0ano@indstorage.com wrote:
> Achim-
> 
> Uh, what exactly do you think you have here?  The I860 was a
> completely new architecture that Intel dropped over 5 years
> ago.  I've got one running Unix SVR4 in my basement but you
> can't buy an I860 motherboard today.
> 
> (For the record the 860 was a great architecture for the time
> and I'm still bitter that Intel dropped it but that's a different
> story.)

Uh? You're using the word i860 (the processor, I gather) and great
in the same sentence, and not in combination with disaster?! That's
a first... The i960 is fully ok, but the i860 was a pile of crap.


/David Weinehall
  _                                                                 _
 // David Weinehall <tao@acc.umu.se> /> Northern lights wander      \\
//  Maintainer of the v2.0 kernel   //  Dance across the winter sky //
\>  http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/    </   Full colour fire           </

Re: Intel I860

[J.A. Magallon]

On 20011126 n0ano@indstorage.com wrote:
>Achim-
>
>Uh, what exactly do you think you have here?  The I860 was a
>completely new architecture that Intel dropped over 5 years
>ago.  I've got one running Unix SVR4 in my basement but you
>can't buy an I860 motherboard today.
>
>(For the record the 860 was a great architecture for the time
>and I'm still bitter that Intel dropped it but that's a different
>story.)
>

You are talking about intel i860 _processor_, and he asks about
I860 chipset.

BTW, I always desired to put my hands on an i860. It is the only real
good chip by Intel (it really looked like a Moto...). The only ones
I used were inside an HP Graphics accelerator on a 9000/385.

-- 
J.A. Magallon                           #  Let the source be with you...        
mailto:jamagallon@able.es
Mandrake Linux release 8.2 (Cooker) for i586
Linux werewolf 2.4.16-pre1 #1 SMP Sun Nov 25 02:06:34 CET 2001 i686

Re: Intel I860

[Albert D. Cahalan]

J.A. Magallon writes:
> On 20011126 n0ano@indstorage.com wrote:

>> Uh, what exactly do you think you have here?  The I860 was a
>> completely new architecture that Intel dropped over 5 years
>> ago.  I've got one running Unix SVR4 in my basement but you
>> can't buy an I860 motherboard today.
>>
>> (For the record the 860 was a great architecture for the time
>> and I'm still bitter that Intel dropped it but that's a different
>> story.)
>
> You are talking about intel i860 _processor_, and he asks about
> I860 chipset.
>
> BTW, I always desired to put my hands on an i860. It is the only real
> good chip by Intel (it really looked like a Moto...). The only ones
> I used were inside an HP Graphics accelerator on a 9000/385.

You people are insane, but hey, it'd be cool to have i860 Linux.
Maybe you don't realize just how unfit this chip is for normal
UNIX-like use.

It's a RISC chip with the Pentium MMU. To get any speed out of it,
you have to enable some strange features. First of all, you need
the double-instruction mode. In every 64-bit chunk of memory you
place 1 floating-point instruction and 1 integer instruction.
Second of all, you need to enable pipelined FPU operation. This is
an exposed pipeline, so watch out! Look what happens:

a = x + x
b = a + a     <-- uses old value of "a", not x+x
nop
nop
nop
c = a + a

Yep, c!=a after this!  Actually, "c" won't be set until a few
instructions later because it too is still in the pipeline.
You need a few dummy operations to push it out.

Now lets have a trap of some sort while that floating-point
pipeline is full. The chip leaves itself in a horrible messy
state that may well require thousands of lines of assembly
code to sort out. I'm not kidding.

The chip made a fine DSP. You could put a few dozen together
for radar.

Re: Intel I860

[Alan Cox]

> You people are insane, but hey, it'd be cool to have i860 Linux.
> Maybe you don't realize just how unfit this chip is for normal
> UNIX-like use.

There already is an i860/i960 ucLinux port.

Re: Intel I860

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <200112091201.fB9C1wD158088@saturn.cs.uml.edu>
By author:    "Albert D. Cahalan" <acahalan@cs.uml.edu>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> 
> It's a RISC chip with the Pentium MMU. To get any speed out of it,
> you have to enable some strange features. First of all, you need
> the double-instruction mode. In every 64-bit chunk of memory you
> place 1 floating-point instruction and 1 integer instruction.
> Second of all, you need to enable pipelined FPU operation. This is
> an exposed pipeline, so watch out! Look what happens:
> 
> a = x + x
> b = a + a     <-- uses old value of "a", not x+x
> nop
> nop
> nop
> c = a + a
> 
> Yep, c!=a after this!  Actually, "c" won't be set until a few
> instructions later because it too is still in the pipeline.
> You need a few dummy operations to push it out.
> 

Nononon... it's much worse than that.

The i860 used a non-self-terminating pipeline, which meant that for
each instruction you had "what to stuff into the pipeline at this
stage" and "what to do with what comes out of the pipeline here",
which means that to compute d = a + b - c you'd have to do something
like:

X = a + b
nop
nop
nop
t = XXX
X = t - c
nop
nop
nop
d = XXX

... where X means don't care.  To compute, say, h = e + f - g in
parallel with this, it would look something like:

X = a + b
X = e + f
nop
nop
t = XXX
u = t - c
X = u - g
nop
nop
d = XXX
h = XXX

Note the instruction u = t - c, even though the left side and right
side don't even belong to the same thread of execution...

     -hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt	<amsp@zytor.com>

Re: Intel I860

[Steve Underwood]

n0ano@indstorage.com wrote:

> Achim-
> 
> Uh, what exactly do you think you have here?  The I860 was a
> completely new architecture that Intel dropped over 5 years
> ago.  I've got one running Unix SVR4 in my basement but you
> can't buy an I860 motherboard today.
> 
> (For the record the 860 was a great architecture for the time
> and I'm still bitter that Intel dropped it but that's a different
> story.)


Yep. The i432, sorry the i860, sorry the Itanium is most definitely 
going to be the next great processor, with a long and solid future!

Regards,
Steve

RE: Intel I860

[Marvin Justice]

Different i860. I think he may be referring to one of these, eg.,
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderi860.html. 

I've booted a recent Linux kernel on this board and, aside from the
unbalanced interrupts previously mentioned, it seemed ok. Then again, I
didn't do any load stressing that might reveal potential failures.


-------------------------
Marvin Justice
Software Developer
BOXX Technologies, Inc.
www.boxxtech.com
mjustice@boxxtech.com
(V) (512)225-6318
(F) (512)835-0434


> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
> [mailto:linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org]On Behalf Of
> n0ano@indstorage.com
> Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 4:28 PM
> To: Achim Krümmel
> Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: Intel I860
> 
> 
> Achim-
> 
> Uh, what exactly do you think you have here?  The I860 was a
> completely new architecture that Intel dropped over 5 years
> ago.  I've got one running Unix SVR4 in my basement but you
> can't buy an I860 motherboard today.
> 
> (For the record the 860 was a great architecture for the time
> and I'm still bitter that Intel dropped it but that's a different
> story.)
> 
> On Thu, Nov 22, 2001 at 03:43:37PM +0100, Achim Krümmel wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have to setup a fast Linux Server for a database application.
> > I would like to use a Mainboard for 2 Pentium4 CPUs for this.
> > I found such a board with a Intel I860 chip. Is this chip
> > supported by the current Kernel v2.4.14 or will I get problems
> > with this board and Linux?
> > 
> > many thanks,
> > 
> >    Achim Kruemmel
> > -
> > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe 
> linux-kernel" in
> > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> > Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 
> -- 
> Don Dugger
> "Censeo Toto nos in Kansa esse decisse." - D. Gale
> n0ano@indstorage.com
> Ph: 303/652-0870x117
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe 
> linux-kernel" in
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> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>