omniomni/omni-engineering huggingface dataset:
Fireplane. Fireplane is a computer internal interconnect created by Sun Microsystems.

The Fireplane interconnect architecture is an evolutionary development of Sun's previous Ultra Port Architecture (UPA). It was introduced in October 2000 as the processor I/O interconnect in the Sun Blade 1000 workstation, followed in early 2001 by its use in the Sun Fire and Sun Fire 15K series enterprise servers. These coincided with the popular expansion of the web in the dot com boom and a shift of Sun's main market from Unix workstations to datacenter servers such as the Starfire, supporting high traffic web sites.

Peak performance (in the Sun Blade 1000) reached 67.2 GBytes/second or a sustained 9.6 Gbit/s (2.4 Gbit/s for each processor).

Each generation of Sun architecture had involved upgraded processors and matching upgrades to the bus or interconnect architectures that supported them. By this time, fast access to memory was becoming more important than simple CPU instruction speed for overall performance. Multiprocessors, shared memory, memory caching and switching between CPU and memory were technologies necessary to achieve this.

The Sun Fire 15K series frame allows 18 combined processor and memory expander boards. Each board comprises four processors, four memory modules and I/O processors. The Fireplane interconnect uses 18×18 crossbar switches to connect between them. Overall peak bandwidth through the interconnect is 43 Gbytes per second.

As memory architectures increase in complexity, maintaining cache coherence becomes a greater problem than simple connectivity. Fireplane represents a substantial advance over previous interconnects in this aspect. It combines both snoopy cache and point-to-point directory-based models to give a two-level cache coherence model. Snoopy buses are used primarily for single buses with small numbers of processors; directory models are used for larger numbers of processors. Fireplane combines both, to give a scalable shared memory architecture.

Each expander board implements snooping across the board, with directory coherence across the interconnect. Each board is considered as a 'snooping coherence domain'. Small to mid-sized Fireplane systems, up to 24 processors, use a single coherence domain. Larger systems with more processors use multiple coherence domains across their backplane interconnect. Competing systems from makers such as SGI or the HP Superdome series use only a single level of coherency support and so require the more complex directory coherence to be used throughout.

Fireplane used for smaller servers and workstations is optimised for their single domain performance. They use an increased system clock by 50% to 150 MHz. Snoops per clock cycle are also doubled from one half to one. Together these allow a snooping bandwidth of 150 million addresses per second.

References

External links
 
 
 

Computer-related introductions in 2000
Sun Microsystems hardware
Computer buses
Klaus Fesser. Klaus Fesser is a professor for theoretical physics at Department of Physics at the University of Greifswald, Germany.

Director
Now, he is the director of the Department of Physics.

Subjects of lectures
 Seminar of theoretical physics 
 Laboratory practical course II 
 Theoretical solid-state physics II 
 Seminar: special problems of theoretical physics 
 Special chapters of the solid theory 
 Physical colloquium

Research field
 low-dimensional condensed matter
 nonlinear dynamics in plasma
 bifurcation theory
 carbon nanotube

External links
 more details

21st-century German physicists
Living people
Academic staff of the University of Greifswald
Year of birth missing (living people)
James Berges. James Berges was president of Emerson Electric Corp from 1999 until he retired in 2005. He resides in St. Louis, Missouri. He was involved in the company for over 30 years. Mr. Berges, with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, previously worked for General Electric Corp. He earned compensation of $9.5 million in 2005.

External links 
'Emerson President James G. Berges to Retire November 1' (Emerson News)

General Electric people
PPG Industries people
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Non-circular gear. A non-circular gear (NCG) is a special gear design with special characteristics and purpose. While a regular gear is optimized to transmit torque to another engaged member with minimum noise and wear and with maximum efficiency, a non-circular gear's main objective might be ratio variations, axle displacement oscillations and more. Common applications include textile machines, potentiometers, CVTs (continuously variable transmissions), window shade panel drives, mechanical presses and high torque hydraulic engines.

A regular gear pair can be represented as two circles rolling together without slip. In the case of non-circular gears, those circles are replaced with anything different from a circle. For this reason NCGs in most cases are not round, but round NCGs that look like regular gears are also possible (small ratio variations result from meshing area modifications).

Generally, NCGs should meet all the requirements of regular gearing but in some cases, for example variable axle distance, could prove impossible to support, and such gears require very tight manufacturing tolerances and assembling problems arise. Because of complicated geometry, NCGs are most likely spur gears and molding or electrical discharge machining technology is used instead of generation.

Mathematical description 

Ignoring the gear teeth for the moment (i.e. assuming the gear teeth are very small), let  be the radius of the first gear wheel as a function of angle from the axis of rotation , and let  be the radius of the second gear wheel as a function of angle from its axis of rotation . If the axles remain fixed, the distance between the axles is also fixed:

Assuming that the point of contact lies on the line connecting the axles, in order for the gears to touch without slipping, the velocity of each wheel must be equal at the point of contact and perpendicular to the line connecting the axles, which implies that:

Each wheel must be cyclic in its angular coordinates. If the shape of the first wheel is known, the shape of the second can often be found using the above equations. If the relationship between the angles is specified, the shapes of both wheels can often be determined analytically as well.

It is more convenient to use the circular variable  when analyzing this problem. Assuming the radius of the first gear wheel is known as a function of z, and using the relationship , the above two equations can be combined to yield the differential equation:

where  and  describe the rotation of the first and second gears respectively. This equation can be formally solved as:

where  is a constant of integration.

References

Further reading
 Noncircular Gears: Design and Generation by Faydor L. Litvin, Alfonso Fuentes-Aznar, Ignacio Gonzalez-Perez, and Kenichi Hayasaka

External links
Historic Video of Non-Circular Gears on YouTube
The Eye of an Artist
Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library (KMODDL)

Laczik- Involute Profile of Non-Circular Gears
"Gear geometry and applied theory" by Faydor L. Litvin and Alfonso Fuentes
A paper on designing of non-circular gears

Gears
Individual Computers. Individual Computers is a German computer hardware company specializing in retrocomputing accessories for the Commodore 64, Amiga, and PC platforms. Individual Computers produced the C-One reconfigurable computer in 2003. The company is owned and run by Jens Schönfeld.

Products
Catweasel – Universal format floppy disk drive controller card
Retro Replay – Improved version of the C64 Action Replay cartridge
Clone-A – Amiga in FPGA website (coming soon?)
 See the PDF extract of Total Amiga Magazine issue 25
MMC64 – MMC and SD Card reader cartridge
MMC Replay – MMC64 and Retro Replay combined in one cartridge, with some improvements
Micromys – An adapter that allows connecting PS/2 compatible mice (including wheel-support) to C64 and Amiga joystick-ports (and all other computers that share the same pin-configuration).
Amiga clock port compatible addons for MMC64, Retro Replay and MMC Replay:
RR-Net: A C64-compatible Network-Interface. Comes in 2 shapes, the old long RR-Net fits Retro Replay and MMC64 (though partly blocking the latter's passthrough expansionport), the new L-shaped RR-Net2 fits MMC64 and MMC Replay and was built with MMC Replay in mind.
Silver Surfer: Highspeed RS232 Interface for Amiga 1200 and 600 (with adapter). Fits onto Retro Replay, MMC64/Replay compatibility unknown.
mp3@c64: hardware mp3 decoding from SD card. Made for MMC64, Retro Replay and MMC Replay compatibility unknown.
Keyrah – An interface that allows the connection of Commodore keyboards to USB-capable computers
C-One – reconfigurable computer
X-Surf – network card
C64 Reloaded - A 1:1 rebuilt C64 motherboard with less power consumption
Indivision – Flicker fixer for Amiga computers
ACA boards - CPU expansion cards for Amiga computers

References

External links
Individual Computers official website
Individual Computers Product Information Wiki

Home computer hardware companies
Electronics companies of Germany
Commodore 64
Amiga companies
Computer companies of Germany
Computer hardware companies
I2O. Intelligent Input/Output (I2O) is a defunct computer input/output (I/O) specification. I2O was originally designed to make use of the Intel i960 microprocessor as the I/O offload engine, bringing channel I/O to the PC. I2O emerged from Intel in the mid 1990s with the publication of the I2O specification in 1996 by the Intelligent I/O Special Interest Group, which dissolved as of 13 October 2000.

I2O's principal architectural components included the I/O processor (IOP) and a split device driver model, with an OSM (OS Module) running in the host operating system and a HDM (Hardware Device Module) running on the I/O processor.  This formally separated OS-specific driver functionality from the underlying device, and the two software components used message passing for communications.  This split is suggestive of another initiative in which Intel participated at the time, the Uniform Driver Interface (UDI), which sought to establish a common device driver interface spanning multiple software platforms.

I2O was plagued by several problems: the i960 was largely a failure and I2O made systems more expensive in a low cost marketplace.  Additionally, the I2O SIG was seen as hostile to open source and insensitive to small players because it charged high fees for participation and was dominated by a few corporate players, notably Microsoft.  While it remains unclear which of these factors caused the ultimate failure of I2O, only a few server class machines were ever built with onboard I2O. The I2O-SIG disbanded in October 2000, with a small amount of architectural information being made available via FTP at about the same time.

A number of x86-compatible operating systems provided support (or still do) for I2O, including Windows, Linux (removed in 4.0), Solaris, OpenBSD, and NetWare.

Examples of systems which utilized I2O
 Compaq Proliant
 HP NetServer LH3000
 PERC 4 DC SCSI/i20 on Dell PowerEdge
 NEC Express5800

References

External links
 sco.com - I20
 intel.com - UDI and I2O: Complementary Approaches to Portable, High-performance I/O
 intelligent-io.com from the Internet Archive
 wired.com - Consortium segregates the bus

Input/output
Crossbar latch. The Crossbar latch is a technology published by Phillip Kuekes of HP Labs in 2001 and granted a US patent in 2003, with the goal of eventually replacing transistors in various applications. This would enable the creation of integrated circuits composed solely of memristors, which, according to the patent, might be easier and less expensive to create. In 2005, Phillip Kuekes stated that the crossbar latch "could someday replace transistors in computers, just as transistors replaced vacuum tubes and vacuum tubes replaced electromagnetic relays before them."

Details
The crossbar latch was introduced by HP Labs scientists in the Journal of Applied Physics, which provides a basis for constructing logic gates using memristors. The crossbar latch consists of a signal line crossed by two control lines.  Depending on the voltages sent down the various lines, it can simulate the action of the three major logic gates: AND, OR and NOT.

The abstract of the patent is as follows:

Applications in arithmetic processing

Greg Snider of Hewlett-Packard created this application, which uses crossbar latches to imitate the functionality of a half adder, which is the foundation of modern computing systems.  A crossbar tile is created in this application from a layer of horizontal row wires and a layer of vertical column wires, with memristor or similar materials sandwiched between the horizontal and vertical wire layers. Each crossbar tile intersection or junction can be configured to be in a high-resistance state with little or no current flowing between the horizontal and vertical wires, or in a low-resistance state with current flowing. Fig. 1 illustrates the configuration of a half-adder using a crossbar tile, as taught by Snider, with the nodes identifying junctions of the crossbar tile configured as low-resistance states. By setting different logic inputs A, NOT A, B, and NOT B to different row wires this configuration produces the sum and carry outputs typical for a half-adder. Connections between multiple half-adders may then be used to form full adders in accordance with conventional arithmetic architectures.

Applications of crossbar latch in neuromorphics

Crossbar latches have been suggested as components of neuromorphic computing systems. One implementation of this is in the form of a neural network formed from nanowires as discussed in a patent by Greg Snider of Hewlett-Packard.

See also
 Memristor

References

External links
 
 Research could send transistors the way of the vacuum tube (HP Press Release)
 HP claims molecular computing breakthrough (ComputerWorld)

Electrical components
Swale (landform). A swale is a shady spot, or a sunken or marshy place. In US usage in particular, it is a shallow channel with gently sloping sides.  Such a swale may be either natural or human-made. Artificial swales are often infiltration basins, designed to manage water runoff, filter pollutants, and increase rainwater infiltration. Bioswales are swales that involve the inclusion of plants or vegetation in their construction, specifically.

On land
The use of swales has been popularized as a  rainwater-harvesting and  soil-conservation strategy by Bill Mollison, David Holmgren, and other advocates of permaculture. In this context a swale is usually a water-harvesting ditch on contour, also called a contour bund.

Swales as used in permaculture are designed by permaculturalists to slow and capture runoff by spreading it horizontally across the landscape (along an elevation contour line), facilitating runoff infiltration into the soil.  This archetypal form of swale is a dug-out, sloped, often grassed or  "ditch" or "lull" in the landform. One option involves piling the soil onto a new bank on the still lower slope, in which case a bund or berm is formed, mitigating the natural (and often  hardscape-increased) risks to slopes below and to any linked watercourse from flash flooding. 

In arid and seasonally dry places, vegetation (existing or planted) in the swale benefits heavily from the concentration of runoff. Trees and shrubs along the swale can provide shade and mulch which decrease evaporation.

On beaches
The term "swale" or "beach swale" is also used to describe long, narrow, usually shallow troughs between ridges or sandbars on a beach, that run parallel to the shoreline.

See also
 Contour trenching
 Gutter
 Keyline design
 Rain garden
 Stormwater
 Water-sensitive urban design

References

External links

 Fact Sheet: Dry and Wet Vegetated Swales from Federal Highway Administration
 Wetlands of the Great Lakes: The Beach Swale & Dune and Swale Types from Michigan State University
 Video showing swales used to rehabilitate desert terrain

Environmental engineering
Landforms
Landscape
Sustainable gardening
Sustainable design
Water
Water pollution

es:Zanja
Pierre-Marie-Jérôme Trésaguet. Pierre-Marie-Jérôme Trésaguet (15 January 1716 – 1796) was a French engineer. He is widely credited with establishing the first scientific approach to road building about the year 1764. Among his innovations was the use of a base layer of large stone covered with a thin layer of smaller stone. The advantage of this two-layer configuration was that when rammed or rolled by traffic the stones jammed into one another forming a strong wear resistant surface which offered less obstruction to traffic.

Trésaguet was born in Nevers, the youngest son from a family of engineers. He began his career as a sub inspector in the Corps des Ponts et Chaussées (Bridges and Highways Corps), in Paris. He later moved to Limoges, Haute-Vienne as chief engineer in 1764. In 1775 he was appointed inspector general of roads and bridges for all of France. He published a paper describing his road building methods.

Method of road building
First of all, an earth foundation was excavated parallel with but about ten inches below the finished surface of the new road. This was convex in cross section to encourage water to drain off the finished surface.

Next, large stones were laid on edge and any protruding pieces on their upper edges broken off to leave an even surface. This stone foundation was covered with a second course of smaller rounded stones.

Finally, a third layer of hard broken stone, (about the size of walnuts) was spread by a shovel to produce the surface layer.

This system was used continuously in France from 1775 until 1820 when the country changed to the cheaper Macadam method.

See also
Hubert Gautier
Thomas Telford
John Loudon McAdam

References
Arthur G. Bruce, Highway Design and Construction, International Textbook Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania  (1934)

1716 births
1796 deaths
People from Nevers
18th-century French engineers
18th-century French people
French civil engineers
Transport pioneers
Exponential Technology. Exponential Technology was a vendor of PowerPC microprocessors. The company was founded by George Taylor and Jim Blomgren in 1993. The company's plan was to use BiCMOS technology to produce very fast processors for the Apple Computer market. Logic used 3-level ECL circuits (single-ended for control logic, and differential for datapaths) while RAM structures used CMOS. The company was originally named Renaissance Microsystems. Rick Shriner was the CEO. Their chips were manufactured by Hitachi.

Their product, the Exponential X704, was advertised to run at 533 MHz, but the first version of the device only ran at about 400 MHz, still significantly faster than the 233 MHz PowerPC 604e used in Macintosh computers at the time. This lower frequency along with small level-one caches, produced systems which had good but not stellar performance.  This allowed Motorola (Apple's traditional processor vendor), to convince the computer maker that Motorola's future roadmap would produce processors with similar performance, hence making it less attractive for Apple to rely on the small startup company for critical technology.

Due to Apple's financial problems at the time, Exponential starting marketing the device to Apple Macintosh clone makers such as Power Computing and UMAX.

In order to diversify into other markets, a second design team was started under Paul Nixon in Austin, TX to build a BiCMOS Intel x86 processor.

Due to Apple's decision to close off the Macintosh clone market, Exponential ran out of possible customers for their chips. The company closed in 1997, though the Texas design team run by Paul Nixon continued on as EVSX.  EVSX changed its name to Intrinsity, Inc. in 2000 and was purchased by Apple in 2010.

Notes

External links
 
 IEEE paper on the processor, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, November 1997

1993 establishments in California
1997 disestablishments in California
American companies established in 1993
American companies disestablished in 1997
Computer companies established in 1993
Computer companies disestablished in 1997
Defunct computer companies of the United States
Defunct computer hardware companies
Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States
SSBS S1. The SSBS was a series of French military medium-range ballistic missiles.

Overview
The first series, SSBS S1, was launched between 1965 and 1968.  It had a maximum altitude of , a lift off thrust of 440 kN, total mass of , a diameter of  and a total length of .

References

Ballistic missiles of France
Experimental rockets
Cancelled spacecraft
Cancelled space launch vehicles
Projects established in 1965
1960s in France

Medium-range ballistic missiles
Network complexity. Network complexity is the number of nodes and alternative paths that exist within a computer network, as well as the variety of communication media, communications equipment, protocols, and hardware and software platforms found in the network.

Simple network: A small LAN with no alternative paths, a single communication protocol, and identical hardware and software platforms across nodes would be classified as a simple network.

Complex network: An enterprise-wide network that uses multiple communication media and communication protocols to interconnect geographically distributed networks with dissimilar hardware and software platforms would be classified as a complex network.

See also
Connectivity (graph theory)

References

Complexity
Solenoid bolt. A solenoid bolt is a type of electronic-mechanical locking mechanism. This type of lock is characterized by the use of a solenoid to throw the bolt. Sophisticated solenoid bolt locks may use microprocessors to perform voltage regulation, reduce power consumption, and/or provide access control. Depending on the strength of the solenoid, some models can provide a holding force on the order of 1000 kg. A solenoid bolt can be designed either to fail open (the lock opens on power loss) or to fail closed (the device is locked upon power loss). Some models may be suitable for high-security sites.

References

Locks (security device)
MCPS. MCPS can refer to:

Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society
Member of College of Physicians and Surgeons, a membership offered by the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan
Microsoft Cordless Phone System, the first phone produced by Microsoft
Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Millions of cycles per second (better known as Megahertz), a frequency measure used for processing speed in computers
Media Access Control (MAC) Common Part Sublayer
Modular Command Post System

 Schools and school districts
Maury County Public Schools
Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School, Montgomery, Alabama
 Montgomery County Public Schools (Maryland)
 Montgomery County Public Schools (Virginia)
McCracken County Public Schools
Marion County Public Schools, Marion County, Florida