DOS360: Forty years 533

Intel x86 architecture word size
Motaz Saad Architectures don't have word sizes, implementations do. (Or so some people will say.) memory Let's take the IBM 360 architecture. Most people call it a 32-bit architecture...

I think some of you need to see a modern server PC with a decent OS.

Modern servers have 3-6 PCI busses, 2-8 processors, possibly with hyperthreading, and handle 256 or more interrupts or DMA channels. The long, painful road to Linux 2.6 was all about supporting this.

Memory bandwidth is somewhere around 800 megawords per second, where the word is 32 to 128 bits in size. They usually have 2-15 network interfaces, and can handle multiple gigabits worth of network bandwidth. Raw, aggregate, old-time MIPS rating is somewhere around 5-25 BIPS integer and 2-14 BIPS floating point. Disks are usually handled in separate RAID-mirror clusters. Disks tend to be the slow components. Nothing new there.

Caches are large, and popular programs (like KLH10) run all in cache.

They cost more than a stock PC, around $3000. I am truly impressed at their load-taking capabilities. You can let loose a thousand database connections, or a few tens of thousands web users on one of these.

They don't have serial ports. Nor floppy drives.

That the desktop is unacceptably bloated is not the fault of the PC designer. They have made a stellar job of migrating the old 8088 design into something really good.

I have a different recollection of CPU availability. CPU cycles were scarce and rationed until sometime in 1996, when the idle process suddenly became the main CPU user.

-- mrr

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		DOS360: Forty years 533 Intel x86 architecture word size Motaz Saad Architectures don't have word sizes, implementations do. (Or so some people will say.) memory Let's take the IBM 360 architecture. Most people call it a 32-bit architecture... I think some of you need to see a modern server PC with a decent OS. Modern servers have 3-6 PCI busses, 2-8 processors, possibly with hyperthreading, and handle 256 or more interrupts or DMA channels. The long, painful road to Linux 2.6 was all about supporting this. Memory bandwidth is somewhere around 800 megawords per second, where the word is 32 to 128 bits in size. They usually have 2-15 network interfaces, and can handle multiple gigabits worth of network bandwidth. Raw, aggregate, old-time MIPS rating is somewhere around 5-25 BIPS integer and 2-14 BIPS floating point. Disks are usually handled in separate RAID-mirror clusters. Disks tend to be the slow components. Nothing new there. Caches are large, and popular programs (like KLH10) run all in cache. They cost more than a stock PC, around $3000. I am truly impressed at their load-taking capabilities. You can let loose a thousand database connections, or a few tens of thousands web users on one of these. They don't have serial ports. Nor floppy drives. That the desktop is unacceptably bloated is not the fault of the PC designer. They have made a stellar job of migrating the old 8088 design into something really good. I have a different recollection of CPU availability. CPU cycles were scarce and rationed until sometime in 1996, when the idle process suddenly became the main CPU user. -- mrr List \| Previous \| Next



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