Cluster PC

A method for computing, comprising:

• providing a gateway CPU that communicates with I/O devices or peripherals or both;
• providing a plurality of application-specific CPUs communicating with the gateway CPU;
• running substantially at most one application on each application-specific CPU;
• communicating data between one of the application-specific CPUs and another directly without passing the data through the gateway CPU;
• wherein the application-specific CPUs accesses the gateway CPU, or vice-versa, when necessary to access I/O devices or peripherals or both,
• such that the gateway CPU substantially acts as a buffer or clearinghouse for data to and from the application-specific CPUs and does not substantially perform application processing itself.

A method for computing, comprising:

• providing a gateway CPU that communicates with I/O devices or peripherals or both;
• providing a plurality of application-specific CPUs communicating with the gateway CPU;
• running substantially at most one application on each application-specific CPU;
• wherein the application-specific CPUs accesses the gateway CPU, or vice-versa, when necessary to access I/O devices or peripherals or both,
• such that the gateway CPU substantially acts as a buffer or clearinghouse for data to and from the application-specific CPUs and does not substantially perform application processing itself.

A computer, comprising:

• a gateway CPU that communicates with I/O devices or peripherals or both;
• a plurality of application-specific CPUs communicating with the gateway CPU, each application-specific CPU running substantially only one application, each of the application-specific CPUs accessing the gateway CPU, or vice-versa, when necessary to access I/O devices or peripherals or both,
• such that the gateway CPU substantially acts as a buffer or clearinghouse for data to and from the application-specific CPUs and does not substantially perform application processing itself,
• and further comprising at least one memory register for storage of data for the application-specific CPUs, the memory register including plural memory modules, each module in the plurality being provided the same data as written to the memory register, wherein each of the plurality of application-specific CPUs may access a separate module for retrieval of data.