> At the hardware level we do have message passing between a
> processor and the memory controller -- this is exactly the
> same as talking to a shared server and has the same issues of
> scaling etc. If you have very few clients, a single shared
> server is indeed a cost effective solution.

just to repeat myself in a context that hopefully makes things
clearer:  sometimes we don't admit it's a network.  and that's
not always a bad thing.

- erik