From owner-freebsd-hackers  Mon Jun 29 12:34:02 1998
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Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 15:31:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Ron G. Minnich" <rminnich@Sarnoff.COM>
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To: Jamie Bowden <jamie@itribe.net>
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Subject: Re: I2O
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On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Jamie Bowden wrote:
> 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.

3dfx is not offloading io. It's offloading computation to a 
special-purpose processor. 

Offloading IO can be a good thing in some circumstances if done properly. 
I2O was not. 

ron

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