on 4/15/00 6:08 AM, Andy Doran at ad@fionn.sports.gov.uk wrote something
like:

> FWIU the i860 is similar to the i960, although it has an instruction set
> supporting vector operations. It has more-or-less the same MMU as the i486.

    I found a web site that appears to have pretty good documentation on the
i860 specifically. It's up at
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/9863/i860_intro.html
    It seems to be a good choice of processing power for the job at hand,
I'd really be interested in knowing how the PX/PXG's work. It certainly
makes one interested when I noticed that there are not 1, not 2, not 3, but
4 Brooktree 459 RAMDAC's all running at 135MHz on my PXG+ :) I'm guessing
that the 459 RAMDAC has been well documented and there is no shortage of
info on it, though I haven't checked. I'd really like to see what DEC did
with the PXG+ Turbo! Three TC slots for one card :) Anyone got a picture?

<SHAMELESS> I'm also looking for the 8 bit Z-buffer memory module for my
PXG+ (the short one) anyone got a spare or know how much it would cost from
the Q? The part number is 54-20410-AA or 50-20409 for the short one and
54-20352-AA or 50-20531 for the long 16 bit Z-buffer module. Right now I
have a chip from a PMAG-C in the 16 bit slot, and the FB isn't complaining,
I'm assuming that that is a legal thing to do. Are there any general
installation docs/jumper settings around? While I'm at it, I'll gladly
accept a donation of an R4k CPU module :-) </SHAMELESS>

> From a programming perspective, the PV is similar to the PX/PXG in terms of
> command packet format. I'm not sure if the Neon relates similarly.

    Hmm, I think this info could probably be hacked out of Ultrix or OSF/1.
I let Digital Unix 3.5 and 4.0a get away from me on Ebay, I'll have to keep
looking for a copy. The Ultrix 4.5 source does have info on the packet
format IIRC, I'm fairly certain that OSF/1 has info on both PV and PX info,
at least on packet format hopefully. I wonder if anyone on the list bought
that 3100 from a while back with OSF/1 for DECstation MIPS on it.

> Although, personally, I'd be more happy if I knew WTF an "N10" is. :)

    *clueless*

> Source is always nice. If you want to have a look, please do try (but don't
> get your hopes up).

    Sounds like Brian Kelleher at 3Dlabs is the person to be looking for.
I'll have to do some surfing on the 3Dlabs web site and see if I can dig up
anything. 


    Chris
-- 

Murphy was an optimist.