[rescue] Re: I/O coprocessors?

[Dave McGuire]

On Saturday, March 1, 2003, at 11:08 PM, Gavin Hubbard wrote:
>> Are there other microprocessor families with dedicated I/O processors?
>> Moto 68k?  Zilog?
>
> I'm probably completely misunderstanding your question, but many 
> midrange *nix systems have separate dedicated I/O processors. A great 
> example are modern HP 9000 boxes which have a GSP (Guardian Service 
> Processor). Basically a small computer within a computer, it handles 
> all console I/O and provides a watchdog timer as well as logging 
> chassis fault codes and a million other useful things. The newer GSPs 
> even have an inbuilt http server that pushes out a Java based console 
> interface through a dedicated ethernet port. Even the low-end HP 9000 
> boxes (rp2430 etc) have this technology.

   Though that's certainly *very* interesting, I think Scott mainly had 
in mind subprocessors that offload I/O processing from the main 
processor.  Channel programming in IBM mainframe land, for example.

          -Dave

--
Dave McGuire             "I've grown hair again, just
St. Petersburg, FL           for the occasion."       -Doc Shipley