Intel iPSC/860

1 Comment

System

Company:	Intel
Introduction:	1990
Maximum number of CPUs:	128
uses architecture:	i860
can contain:	Intel i860
System class:	Supercomputer
Contains:	16 * Intel i860

This Intel iPSC/860 (Intel Parallel Super Computer 860) is one of the systems donated by a Stanford University professor. It's managed by this Intel SYP301

The Intel iPSC/860 is a parallel computer, using nodes using 40 MHz Intel 80860 CPU's in a hypercube configuration. My system contains 16 i860 node boards. The largest systems contain 128 CPU's.

The operating system that controls the nodes is called NX (node executive). There should have been an Intel 386-based workstation called the SRM (System Resource Manager) with this system, but that is sadly missing; fortunately, in 2021, an SRM system from an iPSC/2 (which is compatible with the SRM for the iPSC/860) was donated by Chris Heg.

These are the types of boards that can be found in this system. Shown are two RX boards (i860 processor compute node), an SX board (i386 processor compute node with Weitek scalar co-processor), a MS board (i386 processor I/O node with SCSI interface), an IO board (i386 processor I/O node without SCSI interface), a USM board (management board, used for diagnostics and cube initialization), and the front and back of one of the card cages.