Re: [9fans] Plan9 multi-core support

[Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com>]

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The dual VAX was the first machine we tried to make work, but for various
reasons including the machine's peculiarities and our own embryonic
knowledge, we abandoned it. The first working Plan 9 kernel was for a 4-CPU
(one MIPS chip per board) IRIS machine, with custom locking hardware (on
another board) because the MIPS 2000 had no synchronization instructions.
That was started in early 1989.

If there is any evidence of the VAX attempt around, I would disavow it.

-rob


On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 4:22 PM Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:

>
> there was a vax compiler and i think a vax kenfs implementation, i don’t
> know if there was a vax cpu/auth kernel. quite possibly not.
>
> currently i can only find my own post on tuhs confirming the vax was a
> dead end. but i am sure jmk told me he found a vax compiler binary in the
> labs dump.
>
> i think vaxes where becoming rather passé by the time plan9 was born.
>
> -Steve
>
>
> > On 28 Aug 2023, at 7:21 pm, Kurt H Maier via 9fans <9fans@9fans.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 12:32:55PM +0000, G B via 9fans wrote:
> >> Windows and Linux began on single-core single processor machines.
> Multiprocessor had been around for some time--IBM's System 360 began using
> multi-processors in 1968--but not for x86. Plan 9 first edition came out in
> 1992, at a time when multicore didn't exist, and multicore was released
> with IBM's Power 4 in 2001.
> >> I can see why someone would ask if Plan 9 supports multicore. Plan 9
> 3rd edition was released in 2000 and 4th edition was released in 2002. In
> each case, going from single core-single processor to multiprocessor and
> then from multiprocessor to multicore would require changes in the
> operating system to recognize the extra processors and then the cores.
> >
> > Symmetric multiprocessing was available in 1992, even on x86
> > machines.  Multics, tops-10, and various unixes all supported it by then.
> > Once you have shared-memory SMP there's little difference between
> > multiprocessor and multicore.  Plan 9's implementation is imo cleaner
> > than most of what came before, but by 1992 there was a lot of
> > multiprocessing going on in the world.
> >
> > khm

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