Title :
A marriage of PC and workstation technologies
Author_Institution :
Mars Microsyst. Inc., PA, USA
fDate :
Feb. 25 1991-March 1 1991
Abstract :
A system that is a hybrid of a PC and a workstation is described. It gives users a superset of both systems without loss of the compatibility, performance, or capability of existing PC systems. The system consists of a SPARC-based workstation with an optional 80386-based DOS coprocessor module. The RISC motherboard and the DOS module have their own cache, memory, and graphics subsystems, which operate independently. The two video streams are mixed so that the DOS VGA display appears as a window in the UNIX screen. The workstation/PC hybrid is based on a 16-b ISA bus, so that hardware as well as software compatibility, is maintained.<>
Keywords :
microcomputers; workstations; 16-b ISA bus; 80386-based DOS coprocessor module; PC; SPARC-based workstation; UNIX screen; cache; graphics subsystems; memory; performance; personal computers; software compatibility; workstation technologies; Coprocessors; Displays; Graphics; Hardware; Instruction sets; Performance loss; Reduced instruction set computing; Software maintenance; Streaming media; Workstations;
Conference_Titel :
Compcon Spring '91. Digest of Papers
Conference_Location :
San Francisco, CA, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-8186-2134-6
DOI :
10.1109/CMPCON.1991.128779
