From: | Robert Hayden <rahayden@*****.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU> |
---|---|
Subject: | Re: Robert's Question about Multitasking |
Date: | Mon, 5 Oct 92 17:14:08 CET |
>
>
>
> Robert, IMHO, not without a lot of nuyen. First of all, you'd need at least
> 3 encephalons, I would think. One handles normal input, another handle's
> extra input, and the third coodinates the other two. Now, you'd probably say
> that I/O SPU's ought to be able to handle this, but I really think not: I
> don't think they're powerful enough. Additionally, onto two of the
> Encephalon's there ought to be at least 2 SPU's each, one data management (>a
> buffer) and one I/O (think of it as a 16550a UART).
>
> On the other hand, you could do a similar thing with less nuyen. That would
> be just 2 SPUs (data and IO) and some memory. You could "offload" active
> tasks to this "buffer" and pick up on them later. (Kind of like swapping
to
> disk)...
>
Hmmm, I guess I didn't see it that way. let me try to draw a picture
------------ -----------
| Datajack | --> | I/O SPU | --------------
------------ ----------- \
\
------------ ----------- \ --------------
| Datajack | --> | I/O SPU | ---------------------> | Encephalon |
------------ ----------- / --------------
/
------------ ----------- /
| Datajack | --> | I/O SPU | --------------
------------ -----------
What I say is each I/O SPU acting as a FIFO buffer in addition. I would
thing the Encephalon would be spart enough to either multitask or
task-switch the I/O. Of course, the more Datajacks you have, the more
memory you have to have dedicated for each process.
For shits and giggles lets try this:
1 datajack: No dedicated memory
2 datajacks: 50 mp dedicated
3 datajacks: 100 mp dedicated
etc...
What that memory is is only accessible by the encephalon's CPU and
facilitates the extra processes that would be required to handle the
additional I/O.
> IMHO this kind of thing would be tres useful for Corp types, and even mages.
> Just think, you could offload an enchanting task to mem and take that phone
> call...
Or with a little bit of work, you could have 4 or 5 processes running and
drastically cut the programming time for all decking related programming :)
>
> --David
and Robert