{{unreferenced, date=June 2013
The PowerNode 9080 was a dual processor
32-bit
In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...
Superminicomputer
A superminicomputer, colloquially supermini, is a high-end minicomputer. The term is used to distinguish the emerging 32-bit architecture midrange computers introduced in the mid to late 1970s from the classical 16-bit systems that preceded the ...
produced by
Fort Lauderdale
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
based electronics company
Gould Electronics
Gould Electronics Inc. was a manufacturer of electronics and batteries that branched into other fields before being partially absorbed in 1988 by Nippon Mining (now JX Holdings) and closed by them in 2014.
History
Gould was founded in 1928 a ...
in the 1980s. Its UTX/32 4.3BSD
Berkeley Unix
The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...
-based operating system was one of the first multi-processor shared memory implementations of Unix, although the processors operated in a Master-Slave configuration with a Mutual Exclusion (
MutEx
In computer science, a lock or mutex (from mutual exclusion) is a synchronization primitive: a mechanism that enforces limits on access to a resource when there are many threads of execution. A lock is designed to enforce a mutual exclusion concu ...
) lock on all
Kernel
Kernel may refer to:
Computing
* Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems
* Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution
* Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming
* Kernel method, in machine learnin ...
IO resources. Machines could be configured for either single or dual processor operation.
The machine itself was housed in a number of 19 inch rack cabinets and the main
CPUs
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...
consisted of 18 boards of ECL logic. The resulting system was capable of benchmark performances up to 20
MIPS, a very high rating at the time. The PowerNode systems were a very close relative of Gould's
real time computer systems running their proprietary
MPX real time operating system. Only about two boards differed between the Unix-running PowerNode machines and the MPX-running real time machines. The most significant of these was the Memory Management board which had
virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very l ...
mapping abilities in the Unix-variant but not in the real-time variant.
A smaller model of the PowerNode was also available in the form of the Gould PowerNode 6032 and 6040 systems which achieved a 7
MIPS performance similar to the contemporary DEC
VAX-11/780
The VAX-11 is a discontinued family of 32-bit superminicomputers, running the Virtual Address eXtension (VAX) instruction set architecture (ISA), developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Development began in 1976. In ad ...
and
VAX-11/785.
The PowerNode series was replaced by the Gould NP-1 series. When Gould was purchased by Nippon Mining, the computer division was divested on the instructions of the US Government for National Security concerns and became part of
Encore Computer
Encore Computer was an early pioneer in the parallel computing market, based in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Although offering several system designs beginning in 1985, they were never as well known as other companies in this field such as Pyramid ...
.
Minicomputers