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Not really knowing anything about software portability between different computer architectures or the intricacies of high-speed networking, at first I thought

Not really knowing anything about software portability between different computer architectures or the intricacies of high-speed networking, at first I thought that was kind of strange. But I checked and it looks like by the time these cards we created, AIX had already been ported to the IBM's ROMP, 370, and POWER processors, plus the 386, so AIX would seem to be fairly portable. I guess it would be easier to port it to the i960, than to do something from scratch. From marcus0x62's link, it looks like very few ( < 100?) of these boards were made.

kev009 2y ago
AIX was for a time IBM's brand name for UNIX environments so it covers some rather distinct products. The version that runs on ROMP is very distinct (one of the earlier commercial microkernels) from the S/370 and i386 version (which, for a time were similar, then there was an ESA/390 version that is not at all), which are both very far removed from the version that continues today on POWER. Sauer was heavily involved in the stuff before POWER and is authoritative on the early history https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2017/03/08/lets-start-at-the-very-beginning-801-romp-rtpc-aix-versions/ https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2017/03/08/lets-start-.... I can extrapolate a bit more if necessary. I am unsure of what exact kernel strain wound up on the i960 cards, suffice to say any of them could have been called into this service since a well contained UNIX port is something that can be done by relatively few people. IBM provided the IBM RT with special cards as the T1 implementation for NSFNet, and then the RS/6000s were used later and especially for higher speed T3 and FDDI nodes. While the original NSFnet nodes and cards would be rare indeed, IBM commercialized this all as the 6611 Network Processor family.. which ranged from tiny PowerPC-only machines (based on the 7011) to custom chassis complete with the i960 cards. These sold from the early 1990s to mid-late 1990s and were not uncommon. Vanilla RS/6000s were also common in that era as networking multitools and were plenty good at it. * https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_rp/8/ENUS8Q1518/index.html https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ss... * http://ps-2.kev009.com/basil.holloway/ALL%20PDF/sg245000.pdf http://ps-2.kev009.com/basil.holloway/ALL%20PDF/sg245000.pdf * http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/6611/ http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/6611/
- sillywalk 2y ago
  Appreciate the information / links, that's why I like Hacker News. Now, instead of doing something boring, like watch the Olympics, I'm going to read up on some old networking processors.

kev009 2y ago

AIX was for a time IBM's brand name for UNIX environments so it covers some rather distinct products. The version that runs on ROMP is very distinct (one of the earlier commercial microkernels) from the S/370 and i386 version (which, for a time were similar, then there was an ESA/390 version that is not at all), which are both very far removed from the version that continues today on POWER. Sauer was heavily involved in the stuff before POWER and is authoritative on the early history https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2017/03/08/lets-start-at-the-very-beginning-801-romp-rtpc-aix-versions/ https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2017/03/08/lets-start-.... I can extrapolate a bit more if necessary. I am unsure of what exact kernel strain wound up on the i960 cards, suffice to say any of them could have been called into this service since a well contained UNIX port is something that can be done by relatively few people. IBM provided the IBM RT with special cards as the T1 implementation for NSFNet, and then the RS/6000s were used later and especially for higher speed T3 and FDDI nodes. While the original NSFnet nodes and cards would be rare indeed, IBM commercialized this all as the 6611 Network Processor family.. which ranged from tiny PowerPC-only machines (based on the 7011) to custom chassis complete with the i960 cards. These sold from the early 1990s to mid-late 1990s and were not uncommon. Vanilla RS/6000s were also common in that era as networking multitools and were plenty good at it. * https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_rp/8/ENUS8Q1518/index.html https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ss... * http://ps-2.kev009.com/basil.holloway/ALL%20PDF/sg245000.pdf http://ps-2.kev009.com/basil.holloway/ALL%20PDF/sg245000.pdf * http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/6611/ http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/6611/

sillywalk 2y ago
Appreciate the information / links, that's why I like Hacker News. Now, instead of doing something boring, like watch the Olympics, I'm going to read up on some old networking processors.