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Interesting! I wonder if there are any writeups around with more details on the SGI X architecture? But I was really thinking about going further with all or
by fulafel 2y ago
Interesting! I wonder if there are any writeups around with more details on the SGI X architecture?
But I was really thinking about going further with all or nearly all of the X server executing on the GPU with only cpu shims for input peripherals, networking etc.
- p_l 2y agoThe closest to this idea was less X11 and more the never actually fulfilled to my knowledge promise of NeXTDimension color board for NeXT Cube - which was supposed to implement the entire graphics stack on the embedded CPU. X11 could be implemented similarly - essentially sticking a complete standalone "X11 terminal" on an Add-In Card - the current GPU architectures aren't necessarily fitting for implementing it directly, but combine essentially an embedded OS running on extra CPU handling the protocol interactions and I/O then use a possibly more tailored interface to talk to GPU (compare with AMD's promise of HSA, or Xbox post 360 or PS4/PS5 architectures where GPU and CPU are on common memory). NeWS-style engine (possibly with something simpler than full postscript) would work great with that, especially if you had properly shared interface libs on it.
- fulafel 2y agoWe could run a OS on current GPUs I think, hardware-wise. And we know from history that compilers can make up for various hardware shortcomings on OS support side. Eg multi-task scheduling and concurrency can be done at the compiler level.