Subject: SMP on older, nonstandard types of i386?
To: None <tech-smp@netbsd.org>
From: Jon Lindgren <jlindgren@slk.com>
List: tech-smp
Date: 09/27/2000 12:05:53
Perhaps this question is a bit premature, but...

I have a number of older Compaq Proliant boxes.  These are p90s, and have
a large compliment of nonstandard (non APIC stuff IIRC) components to
support SMP (not to mention that standard pentiums don't support it "in
house" either)...  These are nice machines, tho, and have lots of good
stuff like excellent cooling, RAID (which Andy Doran has been working on -
he seems to have gotten the cac device to run on EISA), and support for
gobs of memory.

And their prices range from inexpensive to free.

they do run things such as NT in SMP, and I believe Linux works on them
in SMP as well.  I'm not too sure about FreeBSD.

If we had the proper source, dedication, etc... would it theoretically be
possible to add different ways of spinning up/talking between CPUs?  Or
are we tied into the standard Intel specs?

-Curious in NY
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