They were used in some X terminals, so there were at least high level enough operating systems to support an X11 server.
-- Chris > On Oct 29, 2018, at 11:12 AM, alan--- via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote: > > > I know i960 is a very different beast, but was there ever any high level OSs > that ran on it? Or was it pidgin-holed as a high speed embedded processor > for storage controllers and NICs? > > I picked up a cache of i960 CPUs a couple years ago and they speak to me in > tongues every time I pass by the shelf. > > -Alan > > > On 2018-10-29 12:56, Ken Seefried via cctalk wrote: >>> the i860 found at least a little niche on graphics boards, so somehow >>> not a complete failure ;-) >> I'd be mildly surprised if Intel ever made enough from selling i860s >> as GPUs to cover the cost of developing and marketing them. At the >> time, Intel was pushing them as their RISC processor, and put a lot >> into the program. Going to take over the world and all that. Maybe >> not a 'complete' failure...just mostly. >> From: Chuck Guzis <ccl...@sydex.com> >>> On 10/26/18 6:10 AM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk wrote: >>>> However it was a royal PITA to code for although a 32-bit CPU, it would >>>> read memory 64 bits at a time (actually 128 IIRC to satisfy the cache), >>>> with half that 64-bit word being an instruction for the integer unit and >>>> half for the floating point unit, so you effectively had to build a >>>> floating point pipeline by hand coded instructions, so 8 (I think) >>>> instructions to load the pipeline, then each subsequent instruction >>>> would feed another value into the pipe, then another 8 at the end to >>>> empty it. Great for big matrix operations, rubbish for a single add of 2 >>>> FP numbers. >>> My impression of the i860 was that it might have been fun for about 2 >>> weeks for which to code assembly, but after that, you'd really start >>> looking hard for an HLL to do the dirty work for you. While there's a >>> sense of accomplishment over looking at a page of painfully >>> hand-optimized code that manages to keep everything busy with no >>> "bubbles", you begin to wonder if there isn't a better way to spend your >>> life. >> It wasn't fun for the whole 2 weeks. And the i860 is Yet Another >> example of Intel claiming their compilers were going to be so smart >> that all the architectural complexity/warts will never be noticed. >> Wrong, and they didn't learn and said the same thing about Itanium. >> The interrupt stall issue that Gordon pointed out was so bad they were >> basically relegated to single-task software in the end. >> KJ