Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!venera.isi.edu!rod From: rod@venera.isi.edu (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: *big iron* Message-ID: <9911@venera.isi.edu> Date: 27 Sep 89 21:35:22 GMT References: <22488@cup.portal.com> <280001@hpdml93.HP.COM> Reply-To: rod@venera.isi.edu.UUCP (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III) Organization: Information Sciences Institute, Univ. of So. California Lines: 14 Someone mentioned the Crays as examples of hot I/O boxes. A friend of mine who knows these things much better than me called the Cray peripherals "incestuous". Sure they work, but they apparently rely on a nearly intimate knowledge of the timing quirks of the processors and other peripherals. Makes them expensive, and makes it hard to use off-the-shelf parts. What about Thinking Machines' Data Vault? I've been given to understand it's actually better than the machines themselves in some respects. --Rod