4 ms·

Oh that's a weird way to do it; they used to have an x86 add on block for mainframes which was just a pile of x86 blades with some integration.

bombcar 6mo ago
I loved the era of "daughter cards" which were just entire computers on a board. things like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6b4lYOI0GQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6b4lYOI0GQ could get you a really interesting form of multitasking
- bitwize 6mo ago
  Or even Doom on your Beeb: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=32hJLwrk-gY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=32hJLwrk-gY
- Teever 6mo ago
  That's what I was hoping Apple was going to do with a refreshed Mac Pro. I had envisoned a smaller tower design that with PCI slots and Apple developing and selling daughter cards that were basically just a redesigned macbook pro PCB but with a PCI-E edge connector and power connector. The way I see it a user could start with a reasonably powerful base machine and then upgrade it over time and mix and match different daughter cards. A ten year old desktop is fine as a day to day driver, it just needs some fancy NPU to do fancy AI stuff. This kind of architecture seems to make sense to me in an age where computers have such a longer usable lifespan and where so many features are integrated into the motherboard.
  - raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
    You can do basically that by connecting over Thunderbolt 5 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46248644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46248644
    - bigyabai 6mo ago
      Homogenous RDMA is less like a daughterboard and more like a brother or sisterboard.
      - bombcar 6mo ago
        M5 processor plugged into the same RDMA as IBM POWER for that "brother from anothermotherboard".
  - Grosvenor 6mo ago
    Apple already experimented with this with the prototype Jonathan computer. It's very late 80's in its aesthetic, and I love it. https://512pixels.net/2024/03/apple-jonathan-modular-concept/ https://512pixels.net/2024/03/apple-jonathan-modular-concept...
    - bombcar 6mo ago
      This is the kind of glorious thing that will only appear when Moore's law is dead and buried.
- mikepurvis 6mo ago
  From the perspective of PC building, I've always thought it would be neat if the CPU/storage/RAM could go on a card with a PCIe edge connector, and then that could be plugged into a "motherboard" that's basically just a PCIe multiplexer out to however many peripheral cards you have. Maybe it's gimmicky, but I feel like you could get some interesting form factors with the CPU and GPU cards sitting back-to-back or side-by-side, and there would be more flexibility for how to make space for a large air cooler, or take it up again if you've got an AIO. I know some of this already happens with SFF builds that use a Mini-ITX motherboard + ribbon cable to the GPU, but it's always been a little awkward with Mini-ITX being a 170mm square, and high end GPUs being only 137mm wide but up to 300mm in length.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6mo ago
    Oh, going back to a backplane computer design? That could be cool, though I assumed we moved away from that model for electrical/signaling reasons? If we could make it work, it would be really cool to have a system that let you put in arbitrary processors, eg. a box with 1 GPU and 2 CPU cards plugged in
    - mikepurvis 6mo ago
      I believe PCIe is a leader/follower system, so there'd probably be some issues with that unless the CPUs specifically knew they were sharing, or there was a way for the non-leader units to know they they shouldn't try to control the bus.
      - bombcar 6mo ago
        But if we're dreaming, we can have the backplane be actually multiple (Nx thunderbird 5 cables connected each slot to all other slots directly). Then each device can be a host, a client, at the same time and at full bandwidth.
        jasomill 6mo ago
        If every device is directly connected to every other one of n devices with Thunderbolt cables, each with its own dedicated set of PCIe lanes, you'd be limited to 1/n of the theoretical maximum bandwidth between any two devices. What you really want is for every device to be connected through a massive PCIe switch that allows PCIe lanes to be connected arbitrarily, so, e.g., a pair of EPYCs could communicate over 96 lanes with 32 lanes free to connect to peripheral devices.
- wat10000 6mo ago
  Now we have cables that include computers more powerful than an old mainframe. So if it pleases you, just think of all the tiny little daughter computers hooked up to your machine now.

bombcar 6mo ago

I loved the era of "daughter cards" which were just entire computers on a board. things like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6b4lYOI0GQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6b4lYOI0GQ could get you a really interesting form of multitasking

bitwize 6mo ago
Or even Doom on your Beeb: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=32hJLwrk-gY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=32hJLwrk-gY
Teever 6mo ago
That's what I was hoping Apple was going to do with a refreshed Mac Pro. I had envisoned a smaller tower design that with PCI slots and Apple developing and selling daughter cards that were basically just a redesigned macbook pro PCB but with a PCI-E edge connector and power connector. The way I see it a user could start with a reasonably powerful base machine and then upgrade it over time and mix and match different daughter cards. A ten year old desktop is fine as a day to day driver, it just needs some fancy NPU to do fancy AI stuff. This kind of architecture seems to make sense to me in an age where computers have such a longer usable lifespan and where so many features are integrated into the motherboard.
- raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
  You can do basically that by connecting over Thunderbolt 5 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46248644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46248644
  - bigyabai 6mo ago
    Homogenous RDMA is less like a daughterboard and more like a brother or sisterboard.
    - bombcar 6mo ago
      M5 processor plugged into the same RDMA as IBM POWER for that "brother from anothermotherboard".
- Grosvenor 6mo ago
  Apple already experimented with this with the prototype Jonathan computer. It's very late 80's in its aesthetic, and I love it. https://512pixels.net/2024/03/apple-jonathan-modular-concept/ https://512pixels.net/2024/03/apple-jonathan-modular-concept...
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    This is the kind of glorious thing that will only appear when Moore's law is dead and buried.
mikepurvis 6mo ago
From the perspective of PC building, I've always thought it would be neat if the CPU/storage/RAM could go on a card with a PCIe edge connector, and then that could be plugged into a "motherboard" that's basically just a PCIe multiplexer out to however many peripheral cards you have. Maybe it's gimmicky, but I feel like you could get some interesting form factors with the CPU and GPU cards sitting back-to-back or side-by-side, and there would be more flexibility for how to make space for a large air cooler, or take it up again if you've got an AIO. I know some of this already happens with SFF builds that use a Mini-ITX motherboard + ribbon cable to the GPU, but it's always been a little awkward with Mini-ITX being a 170mm square, and high end GPUs being only 137mm wide but up to 300mm in length.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6mo ago
  Oh, going back to a backplane computer design? That could be cool, though I assumed we moved away from that model for electrical/signaling reasons? If we could make it work, it would be really cool to have a system that let you put in arbitrary processors, eg. a box with 1 GPU and 2 CPU cards plugged in
  - mikepurvis 6mo ago
    I believe PCIe is a leader/follower system, so there'd probably be some issues with that unless the CPUs specifically knew they were sharing, or there was a way for the non-leader units to know they they shouldn't try to control the bus.
    - bombcar 6mo ago
      But if we're dreaming, we can have the backplane be actually multiple (Nx thunderbird 5 cables connected each slot to all other slots directly). Then each device can be a host, a client, at the same time and at full bandwidth.
      - jasomill 6mo ago
        If every device is directly connected to every other one of n devices with Thunderbolt cables, each with its own dedicated set of PCIe lanes, you'd be limited to 1/n of the theoretical maximum bandwidth between any two devices. What you really want is for every device to be connected through a massive PCIe switch that allows PCIe lanes to be connected arbitrarily, so, e.g., a pair of EPYCs could communicate over 96 lanes with 32 lanes free to connect to peripheral devices.
wat10000 6mo ago
Now we have cables that include computers more powerful than an old mainframe. So if it pleases you, just think of all the tiny little daughter computers hooked up to your machine now.