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Chapter 2: Basic Features of the CHALLENGE and IRIX(TM) Architectures

IRIX overview<$startrange>The architecture of the CHALLENGE, Onyx, and POWERCHALLENGE computers provides multiple CPUs, a large real memory, a high-speed system bus, and fast I/O channels. (For brevity, the phrase Challenge/Onyx is used to refer to these machines as a single type.)

The IRIX operating system normally manages the hardware resources so as to optimize the throughput of a large number of UNIX* applications, both batch and interactive.

This chapter gives a high-level summary of the standard operational methods of IRIX, and points out how they can sometimes conflict with the needs of a real-time program.

If you already know IRIX and the Challenge/Onyx architecture, you can skip to Chapter 3, "How IRIX(TM) and REACT/Pro(TM) Support RealTime Programs,", which introduces the features you can use to create fully deterministic system behavior for real-time programs.

Multiprocessor Architecture
Process Management

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