Firefly: a multiprocessor workstation

The Firefly shared-memory multiprocessor workstation system consists of from one to nine VLSI VAX processors, each with a floating-point accelerator and a cache. The caches are coherent, so that all processors see a consistent view of main memory. The Firefly runs a software system (Topaz) that emul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on computers 1988-08, Vol.37 (8), p.909-920
Main Authors: Thacker, C.P., Stewart, L.C., Satterthwaite, E.H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Communication system control
Computer science
control theory
systems
Computer systems and distributed systems. User interface
Control systems
Distributed computing
Exact sciences and technology
Hardware
Process design
Software
Software performance
Software systems
Very large scale integration
Workstations
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Summary:The Firefly shared-memory multiprocessor workstation system consists of from one to nine VLSI VAX processors, each with a floating-point accelerator and a cache. The caches are coherent, so that all processors see a consistent view of main memory. The Firefly runs a software system (Topaz) that emulates the Ultrix system call interface, and in addition provides support for multiprocessing through multiple threads of control in a single address space. Communication is provided uniformly through the use of remote procedure call. The authors describe the goals, hardware, software system, and performance of the Firefly, and discuss the extent to which the development has been successful in providing software to take advantage of multiprocessing.< >
ISSN:0018-9340
1557-9956
DOI:10.1109/12.2243