🚀 go-pugleaf

   I would like to connect several (2 to 4) PC's together through
shared memory. The goal is to get bus level speeds while transferring
blocks of data. I would probably be running some flavor of Unix on the
PC's. I have written and measured software on networked Sun's, and
network speeds are far too slow for what I want (on our local net,
we are finding around 10ms per 1024 byte UDP packet). I am trying to
find out if I can get faster speeds through a bus. A friend suggested
that I connect two disk controllers together to make an asynchronous channel;
plug one disk controller into each pc and a cable directly connects them
so instead of talking to a disk it talks to the other controller. Somebody
else suggested I try a similar trick but using video cards and processors
each use an unused part of video ram as a shared buffer.

   All I need is an asynchronous communication channel (no clock sharing
or anything), that effectively allows me to do a fast read and write
blocks bewteen two PC's. Really, the shared memory would be used like a
very fast net. Currently, my software uses asynchronous UDP
packets, so I hope to just rewrite that low level stuff to handle asynch
packets through this shared bus buffer. I am not too worried about the
system software end, but what really worries me is the hardware so I am
looking for a solution that requires as little hardware as possible. 
I want to build simple hardware and write a lot of software.

   Ideally, I want some mix of cables and cards to connect two PC's. Does
such a thing commercially exist? Can I go to a store and buy one? If not,
then I assume that this has been built by various people. Where can
I find out more about some of these implementations? Is there a standard
way to do this? Does anybody have any suggestions about connecting disk
controllers together? Could I do something with a shared scsi bus? Can I
mate two scsi controller cards? Any advice suggestions or ideas would be
greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Dawson Dean
dawson@cs.cornell.edu


   
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| Dawson Dean                    Internet: dawson@cs.cornell.edu |
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