winscape 2260

Ah, I missed that. Multi is definitely not symmetric unless the system can run with any one of the CPUs and all the others dead. IOW, each and every CPU can get at all hardware and deliver computing services without anybody noticing that the configuration heirarchy has changed. I certainly hope that the concept has evolved. You seem to hint at this.

I can see why this would be true for hardware configurations; was there a software restriction? If so, I can't think of the reason.

TOPS did run a 5-CPU. Our limit had to do with field definition that were so ingrained in the code, there wasn't any incentive to modify that for the first release. AFter that, the product line was doomed. So nobody ever thought about expansions. It would have been fun to have more than 8 and start working on no upper limits.

I am surprised, although I shouldn't be, that NT can't do the basics.

That is exactly how any SMP should work.

Gear does exist out there. Once the gamers start getting lots of multi-CPU experience, we'll start seeing the configs become more common. Then the real playing can begin.

BAH