[spitfire]

Don't forget HP also bought Tandem. Who were doing big distributed systems (including a distributed SQL database) in the 1980's. Thankfully, HP keeps their technical documents database online[1]. Including the classic five minute rule paper.[2]

I still have fond memories of SGI systems. I've had Iris PRO's, Indy's and O2's over time. Their NUMA systems Origin/Onyx were amazing. and they had C++ compilers with usable error messages!

1. http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/tandem/ 2. http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/tandem/TR-86.1.pdf

[nickpsecurity]

Tandem was one of the exceptions. They at least keep updating NonStop. It's still the best in fault-tolerant systems that I'm aware of. Need to do a new survey in that stuff sometime to see if academics or startups have exceeded it yet.

Thanks for links. Didn't have them.

EDIT: Thanks twice given one of those links may have answered a question kragen had in another thread about why no heap allowed in passive, process pairs. I'm thinking they're stateless whereas the active ones are stateful. Heaps need stateful.