Re: FYI: I2O Architecture (fwd)
Mark Hemment (markhe@nextd.demon.co.uk)
Tue, 19 Nov 1996 20:23:59 +0000 (GMT)
On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Robert Glamm wrote:
>
> > Have a look at;
> > http://www.i2osig.org/
>
> Looks horribly inefficient to me (as opposed to what they claim). I am
> unconvinced that a "message-passing interface" to device driver/OS
> interaction can provide "high-performance I/O systems." Why stick
> what essentially amounts to another protocol stack sandwiched between
> the hardware-specific points and the O/S layer? Eesh.
>
Despite the pros-and-cons, most of the OS vendors seem to be behind this
(Microsoft, Novell, SCO, Digitial...), and the 'standard' is
currently closed to outsiders.
With the processing power that will be on some of the I2O cards, we
might find network protocol stacks (TCP?), etc, being off-loaded from the
central CPUs.
Would this be a step backwards or forwards from SMP?
Regards,
markhe