🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <12289@reed.UUCP> mdr@reed.UUCP (Mike Rutenberg) writes:
>
>Total aside: Does the Myrias machine exist yet?  How come nobody is
>willing to post a description of it?  I've heard some really unusual
>stories, but have seen nothing at all solid.
>-- 
>Mike Rutenberg      Reed College, Portland Oregon     (503)239-4434 (home)
>BITNET: mdr@reed.bitnet      UUCP: uunet!tektronix!reed!mdr

Well, Chris hasn't responded, so here goes...

I think they finally got their act together and have built an
interesting machine.  Here's some already published information from
the COMPCON '89 proceedings:

They have developed an ISA to support translation to other target
architectures and to provide parallelism to the programmer.
Compilation occurs in two phases: a front-end, from C or Fortran to the ISA,
and a back-end, from the ISA to some target microprocessor.

They liken microcoded machines such as the VAX or 370 to a RISC
interpreting their ISA.  This may be similar to MIPS U-code or
the intermediate code of the HP Precision architecture.

The ISA to target machine translation is transparent to the programmer,
and all implementations are object-code compatible.

now I quote:

"To date, there have been three implementations of the G ISA:
  - on a 68000-based parallel system (SPS-I)
  - on a Sun 3 workstation, with simulated parallelism (PPWB)
  - on a 68020-based parallel system (SPS-2)
The SPS-1 system was used by Myrias for proof-of-concept, and for software
development, from the beginning of 1987 to mid-1989.  The PPWB (parallel
programmer's workbench) is available as a tool for potential customers
to evaluate the programming environment or do program development.  The
Myrias SPS-2, announced in late 1988, is available for commercial sale
in configurations ranging from 60 to over 1,000 processors."

"Design has started on an implementation using a new RISC cpu."

Sorry if this sounds commercial.  I have no relationship with Myrias.


-- 

        Steve Schoettler
        shs@uts.amdahl.com
        {sun,decwrl,pyramid,ames,uunet}!amdahl!shs
        Amdahl Corp., M/S 213, 1250 E. Arques Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94088