[sdiy] Slightly OT : Intel i960

[John L Marshall]

i960 is a older (1990 introduction?) RISC processor intended for embedded
applications.

i860 is the same vintage (1990?) but intended for DSP applications. I think
the i860 would be far more interesting for digital musical applications. It
could do a floating point add and multiply in a single processor cycle.

Intel Supercomputer Division built a super computer based on the i860. If I
remember correctly, there could be upto 128 processors arranged in a
"hyper-cube".

Intel should still have information on their site.


Take care,
John
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


----- Original Message -----
From: "jbv" <jbv.silences at club-internet.fr>
To: "Emmanuel Amadio" <emmanuel.amadio at wanadoo.fr>
Cc: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2002 1:23 PM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Slightly OT : Intel i960


>
>
> Emmanuel,
>
> > I have a really little experience of working with that processor, I used
it
> > for PCI to PCI bridging and transfers control between each sides.
> > If I can help, I'll try but my experience is very limited so I might be
> > quite unhelpful :-(
> >
> > Emmaneul
> >
>
> Well, I was wondering what this processor family was good at...Is it just
a
> general purpose risc processor, or is it targeted at
> specific application domains ?
> Besides, I think I noticed that it has on-chip RAM and a mult unit, and
> therefore was wondering if it could be used alone, or if it always needs
> external chips (ROM etc).
>
> I was also wondering about programing languages (assembler, C...)
> and availability / cost of development platforms (eventually emulators)...
>
> In other words, is it worth considering from the point of view of a
> DIYer or is it beyond that scope ?
>
> Thanks,
> JB
>
> PS : as this is more or less off topic, we can continue this discussion
> privately (and in french)...
>
>