Pyramid comes through for HHB (No more restraints !!)

[bob at hhb.UUCP]

<< "All in one moment, and so near the brink" - Milton, Paradise Lost >>


Note: 	This news is far more relevant if you have been following the
	dialogue about "Pyramid architectural restraints" started by 
	myself on April 22.

After discussing the problems HHB-Softron was having with getting the
CADAT simulation system to run on the Pyramid 90x due to the longword
alignment problem, Pyramid has agreed to change the microcode of the
machine to allow for longword moves from even, non-quad byte
boundaries. (.e.g 2,6,10...).  Pyramid also feels that by making this
change, they will be allowing other major applications which might
exhibit this same feature to run on their machine.

Pyramid assures us that this will have a minimal impact on the overall
performance of the machine. (Guaranteed no greater that 5%.)  And they
believe it will have have no impact at all. 

We are now the proud owners of a Pyramid 90x system with 8MB of memory,
Data Cache, 64 ports, Ethernet and the dual port 4.2/Sys5 operating
system.  Thanx to the responsiveness Pyramid has shown us, the CADAT
concurrent fault simulator will run like the wind on one of the best
price/performance UN*X machines now available.

Those of you who argued that to have a machine which supported this
feature required lots of expensive hardware ought to reconsider.  Isn't
it amazing what a little well designed harware and microcode can do ?

The Pyramid 90x is definitely one less machine we have any right to
ignore...

========================================================== Be

		Bob Erickson
Company:        HHB-Softron 
UUCP address:   {decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!philabs!hhb!bob