The makings of something big…
Over this past week, I’ve purchased 360 Atmel AT49F002-70JC (2Mb flash chip), 1000 IDT 71024S15Y (1Mb sram chip), and 140 Motorola MC68030RP25C (old m68k processor found in old Macs and other computers) in large lots on eBay. Now when you add them altogether, what do you get? Something big…a supercomputer. Well, ok, maybe not a supercomputer of today’s standard since I got ancient processors, but it will still prove a concept. And this concept will be based off the work I’ve done previously with my PComMS project and off two other things.
One is based on the way the early Mac OS was built. Originally, most of the operating system was built inside the ROM on the Mac’s motherboard. User programs would call functions based in the OS using the m68k’s trap/illegal operation ability which would basically allow you to create ‘custom’ instructions.
The other is based on an older piece of technology meant to fix the original megahertz plateau in the late 1980′s. It was called the Transputer. The Transputer processor was a fascinating system that had built in serial links to allow each processor to talk with another. Coupled with a programming language like Occam, you could easily build a distributed system in a single box.
My idea here is to create a ‘boxed’ distributed system that can be upgraded by just adding more processor cards that contain the basics: the CPU, RAM, and a bit of ROM to boot the processor. So no more replacing the RAM or the CPU in your computer to make it faster. With this, you’d just stick in another processor card. I’ll be posting more details about this project in the coming months.
Posted by g1powermac under Computers,Electronics | Comments Off