There are those inside of Intel Corp who are kicking around the notion of using Paris-based Chorus Systemes SA’s Chorus real-time microkernel as a way to commercialise Touchstone, Intel’s massively expensive massively parallel project. Phase three of Touchstone, the Delta machine, wound up using something like a total of 570 processors – a combination of 80860 CPUs and 80386 input-output nodes – supposedly producing a peak theoretical performance of 32 GFLOPS. A one-off research machine, it was bound for the California Institute of Technology. Sigma is the fourth and probably final stage of the Touchstone project, and it seems that some bright lights at Intel have the idea that with Sigma all of that pricey research might be turned into something more profitable. To do that they need to have a more servicable operating system than the Mach they’ve been running. Chorus would make the machines more attractive to the European research community. Doubtless Intel well decide to adopt a dual path: Mach for US laboratories, Chorus for the likes of Boeing Co and General Motors Corp. Right now, however, the issue is fairly politicised and no final decision has been made.
