This includes interprocess communication functions and multitasking management. The i960 also manages the task list, starting and stopping tasks on a priority time-sliced basis. The i960 executes a complete context switch, updating the task list, halting, redirecting, and restarting the compute processor. SKYmpx supports all standard Berkeley UNIX IPC calls including pipes and sockets. For all members of the SKYbolt family, the i960 System Processor manages these functions, freeing the compute processors.
Communication can occur between processors on a single card or between cards.
This list can include multiple long, short, or variable size blocks. Conditional branches can be added to the list to provide different transfers based on data received. The list is created in the CP application and downloaded to the i960 at runtime. The programmer instruments the application with calls to the event logging library. When the application is run, a time-stamped record of the execution of these calls is accumulated.