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Date:      Mon, 29 Jun 1998 15:18:17 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Jamie Bowden <jamie@itribe.net>
To:        "Ron G. Minnich" <rminnich@Sarnoff.COM>
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: I2O
Message-ID:  <Pine.SGI.3.96.980629151541.1819F-100000@animaniacs.itribe.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.980629091801.7178B-100000@terra>

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On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Ron G. Minnich wrote:

> at usenix last week the question of I2O came up. 
> 
> Don't worry about I2O. Look around: how many I2O motherboards do you see,
> as compared to non-I2O motherboards? 
> 
> Look at it this way: you think microsoft is that interested in requiring 
> a second operating system (vxworks) to make NT go? 
> 
> I2O will be a footnote in a year or so. After that, it will be forgotten 
> and in 10 years someone else will reinvent the idea and learn the hard 
> way why it is a bad one (as I2O is itself a reinvention of old, bad ideas).

Why is offloading IO a bad idea?  Offloading video and 3D rendering work
well, it's what drives 3dfx and it's competitors.  Or am I missing
something?  My basic understanding of I2O is using a subprocessor to
handle all IO, thus freeing up the main processor from doing things like
waiting on interrupts and the like.

-- 
Jamie Bowden
Systems Administrator, iTRiBE.net

If we've got to fight over grep, sign me up.  But boggle can go.
	-Ted Faber (on Hasbro's request for removal of /usr/games/boggle)


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