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Linux Business Transmeta Hardware

Chinese "Dragon" Chip On Sale 554

Posted by timothy from the center-of-the-world dept.
mrseigen writes "The processor that Chinese firms have been working on as a response to foreign equipment and software is now available for pre-order. The Inquirer did an article here, and the company website is here. The chip will supposedly ship with Midori Linux."
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Chinese "Dragon" Chip On Sale More

Chinese "Dragon" Chip On Sale

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  • Dragons (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:41PM (#6565255)
    It may not be a good idea to overclock these chips, as the dragons will most likely be hot enough as is...
    • Speaking of overclocking. I wonder how fast these chips really are?

    • For a country that is as backward as mainland China, possessing the ability to make a high-performance 32-bit pipelined microprocessor is a tad surprising. However, when you think of the intimate relationship between Taiwan and mainland China, you realize that the technology for the Dragon microprocessor came from Taiwan. So, things are not that surprising.

      Consider the following.

      1. The constitution of the Chinese living in Taiwan supports the integration of both Tibet and Mongolia into mainland China. Whi

      • Re:Fire-Breathing Dragon Burns Americans and Tibet (Score:5, Insightful)

        by den_erpel ( 140080 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @02:54AM (#6568559) Homepage Journal
        You raise some valid points, but you need to come off your high horse. Back in the time when the USA was, what you call, a backward country, the US was all so pleased to get Fermi [nobel.se], Einstein [st-and.ac.uk] fleeing totalitarian regimes in Europe (to name just a few). They did not come to their theories and research in isolation, but were a product of their environment and education in those countries. But they started or helped a developing industry and research [scienceall.com] in the US.

        Later, the US even incited top leading [gatech.edu] researchers [trance-formation.com] to go to the States, well in many cases, they had little choice, but it was better than being deported by the USSR.

        In short, this has happened before (and was done by those that had little to protect or complain about, but are now the first to be scorned), and is happening again. Nothing new here, move along.

        In times of world Economy, I am still dazzled to see that ppl seem to find reasons to protect their little countries (in fact, the country they are in can do anything they want, but everyone else should be good, unfair competition anyone?). I am just glad to see another alternative processor and in the long term, it can only benefit us with lower prices and better performance.

  • Use caution (Score:3, Funny)

    by egg troll ( 515396 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:41PM (#6565261) Homepage Journal
    Yeah but an hour after you install it, you want to order another one.
  • Man, I can think of about 100 products or companies that are all named "Midori". Either people really like melon liqueur, or the rampant fanboyism really has to stop.

  • Midori -- Stale Distro? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jalexand ( 111040 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:41PM (#6565263)
    Why would they ship with a linux distro that hasn't been updated in two years?
    • The way I read the article they are using the Midori distro because of the support for written Chinese (not specific on the dialect).

      • Re:Midori -- Stale Distro? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Mostly a lurker ( 634878 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:42PM (#6565836)
        they are using the Midori distro because of the support for written Chinese (not specific on the dialect)

        When dealing with the Chinese written language, dialect is more or less irrelevant. The only issue is whether to support 'traditional' or 'simplified' Chinese characters. In mainland China, simplified characters (introduced when the communists took control) is usually desired. In Taiwan and elsewhere, traditional characters are usually employed. When using Unicode, this is almost entirely a font issue. When using older doublebyte character sets, the appropriate encoding system must be supported. I am not absolutely certain, but I think Midori supports everything commonly used.

    • Are you sure they're not running Midori in RAMDisk (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ahfoo ( 223186 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @04:42AM (#6568935) Journal
      I got the impression that the whole distro is loaded into RAMDisk from a flash.
      This really caught my eye because just recently on the Knoppix boards, a script has come out to load a whole Knoppix distro directly into RAMDisk.
      I bet this is how it works and I think it's an awesome way to go. I want to try and load Morphix into 300 Megs of RAM using the script over at Knoppix. You could try it too! They say it's freakin' fast once you load everything into RAM.
      I think it's interesting that the other popular desktops, MS and Apple, really don't have any incentive to go this way since it could potentially stall high end hardware sales and that's not really in their business interests.
      After all, why do you need a bunch of hard drives if your OS is in RAM and you have cheap optical media for storage. And why do you need fast CPUs if your OS is already snappy as hell on an older --or newer, but slower, cheaper and less power hungry-- machines.
      I think this is huge news. I knew it was coming, but I thought it would be awhile. I think the immersion lithography deal made it pointless to put things off anymore. The tech transfer is complete and it had jack to do with Taiwan. The Taiwanese are far too greedy. This was home grown all the way. I have no doubt.

  • The case sticker!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:42PM (#6565273)
    Oh man! It's gonna say "Enter the Dragon" isn't it!!!

  • Sure i'll buy one (Score:5, Funny)

    by zephc ( 225327 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:42PM (#6565275)
    but only if the money is used to torture political dissidents

    [/joke-notice-for-the-humorless]
    • Free Tibet [tibet.org]

      In this context, your post is a little funny, but the flagrant abuses of Tibet that China has perpetrated since the 1950s are inexcusable. The fact that China is even allowed NEAR the United Nations is a gross mockery of justice.

      I know I'm evangelizing here, but people need to know that one of North America's big trading partners uses techniques every bit as brutal and inhuman as Saddam Hussein's.

      • Re:Sure i'll buy one (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:21PM (#6565630)
        I know I'm evangelizing here, but people need to know that one of North America's big trading partners uses techniques every bit as brutal and inhuman as Saddam Hussein's.

        Does Tibet have any oil?

      • You know, I'm not an expert on the subject by any means, so I'm asking and not telling; Is there any truth to the argument that things improved a lot in Tibet when the Chinese took over? I've been led to believe that under the feudal system previously dominating that nation, people weren't really doing all that well, either.

      • Re:Sure i'll buy one (Score:5, Informative)

        by Frymaster ( 171343 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:46PM (#6565884) Homepage Journal
        let's get some facts out about tibet and china before anything gets out of hand:
        • tibet was a province of china until 1911. it was a sovereign nation for 39 years before the 1950 invasion by the pla
        • tibet was not, during that time or before a democracy... or even anything remotely like one
        • tibet was, in fact, an oligarchical theocracy before the invasion. over 90% of the population were "landless serfs" which basically means "plantation slave".
        • the reasons for the 1950 invasion by the pla were threefold: 1) to acquire strategic position between pro-western india and china at the height of the cold war 2) to regain the territory of 1911 3) to liberate the 90% of the population from slavery with what was seen as then as a pro-people ideology (maoism) - remember, the chinese revolution itself was very young and idealistic at that time.
        • after the initial invasion, the dali lama was allowed to keep his existing position and control and send a delegation to beijing. this lasted until the dali lama encouraged his followers to rise up against the pla in 1959. dali lama had to have known that this uprising was doomed to failure, massive deaths of tibetans and resulting repercussions.
        • the chinese government has spent an enormous amount of money on the modernization of tibet - roads, schools, industry an airport.
        • one of the primary changes china made to tibet was land reform. peasants in china now are owner/operators of their own farms and not slaves as they were under the theocracy before the invasion
        • reng rong, the general in charge of the tibet occupation was sacked in 1979 for incompetence. he had failed to bring tibet up to the standard beijing had desired.

          no point. just some facts. a refreshing change of pace for slashdot.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @08:22PM (#6566195)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re:Sure i'll buy one (Score:3, Insightful)

            by uradu ( 10768 )
            > Yeah, and Hitler built the Autobahn.

            I was thinking "what did the Romans ever do for us?" You're right on the spot there, even though I'm sort of a "left-wing" (non)whiner. Another question to ask is: what does it matter what you did for them, if the Tibetans don't want you?

          • Re:Sure i'll buy one (Score:4, Funny)

            by dmiller ( 581 ) <[gro.tordnim] [ta] [mjd]> on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @11:00PM (#6567282) Homepage
            Also, you omitted the overriding reason for the invasion of Tibet: Mao needed to divert the attention of his subjects from his incompetence in agricultural policy, which was killing millions of chinese through starvation.

            Heaven help us if our governments start unnecessary wars to distract us from domestic issues!

          • Re:Sure i'll buy one (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Troed ( 102527 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @03:38AM (#6568712) Homepage Journal
            ... and Israel is demolishing Palestinian houses on Palestinian land so that they can build the Berlin Wall #2 [troed.se].

            Israel, which is defended by the US at all cost.
        • Better check your "facts."

          Tibet has been an independent country (even an empire at times) in Central Asia since about 1000 BCE. Tibet was taken over by the Chinese with help from the British in 1904. Go read up on Col. Younghusband's expedition. Basically, Tibet got caught in the middle of the "Great Game" between the British Indian Empire and the expansionist Russian Czars. The Chinese persuaded the Brits that Tibet was theirs. The Brits were happy to go along because the Chinese were a friendly se
      • China's human rights record is spectacularly bad, on its own merits. Tibet is small potatoes.

        Tibet is pretty, and it has many movie stars. So people worry about Tibet.

        30 MILLION people died in China during the "great leap forward" and "cultural revolution" because of politically motivated starvation and executions. That's more than the population of Tibet. In fact, it ranks as one of the great tradgedies of human history, with the black plague, AIDs, WWI, and WWII.

        Tiannenmen. And friends like

    • Hypocrisy: IT industy is soaking in it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) * on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @10:48PM (#6567223)
      The self righteous crowd got let out of its cage today. Lets address some concerns:

      Humanitarianism:

      The computer you're typing youre typing on was most likely made in a place you would describe as a horrible sweatshop if you would ever get to see it. Same goes for all sorts of computer related goods.

      Lots of goods in general are clearly marked Made in China yet its this chip some people seem so focused on.

      Also, please take into account the US and its own allies record on human rights before entering the morally ambigious grounds of "Bad country vs. Good country."

      Propping up the industry

      All countries do this. Corporate welfare, sweetheart deals, tariffs, etc. Look in your own backyard before you accuse the neighbors of being a nuscience.

      "Its only a pentium II"

      Lets see the PII burns very little energy, had almost 10 million transistors and 64 gigabytes of addressable memory. Not a bad chip to be compared to. I used to run Mandrake on a PII-350 and it would play Divx movies without a frame skip. We're not talking a 8086 chip here.

      I'm not even going to go into how no one really needs a P4 at 2ghz to run Office and all the energy that wastes.

      "Tibet!"

      Whatever your thoughts on Tibet buying not not buying a Dragon chip will make no difference. Its like people refusing to drink French wine because of their position regarding Iraq. The French will not notice or care.

      Also, Tibet was a theocratic slave state with no concept of civil rights either. Pot meet Kettle.

      "China Bad, must punish."

      Maybe not. By entering into normal trade relations we make their economy dependent on the world economy, i.e. it becomes a political check, do bad things, watch your economy collapse through sanctions. I'm no lassieze-faire globalisation nutcase, but this certainly beats isolationism by a wide margin. Business doesnt exist in a vacuum, there have been cultural exchanges for quite some time and I would rather see a positive bend on westernism than trans-atlantic namecalling and useless boycotts.

      I'm an idealist too, but I know that I have bigger problems domestically and if I want to impose my view of the world onto other countries I'd rather be able to point to my backyard and say "this is how its done" as opposed to "you are bad, go away."

  • China is enormous (Score:5, Interesting)

    by buffer-overflowed ( 588867 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:43PM (#6565281) Journal
    And will be an enormous economic force in years to come.

    If they reduce their reliance on foreign IP (or non-free foreign IP) as well as foreign hardware, this can only be good for China, and only be bad for us (Less money flow into the IT industry) unless they produce a higher quality product (thus improving the industry).

    However, in the short term, you know, MS won't make as much money, neither will Intel, and I'm sure a lot of /.ers are really happy about that.
    • MS won't make as much money, neither will Intel, and I'm sure a lot of /.ers are really happy about that.

      Many /.ers are blissfully unaware that they can buy $400 "boxen" thanks to Microsoft. That's how much Windows has commoditized the hardware markets. Of course, if Wintel gets into trouble then... no more cheap "boxen" to run Linux or BSD. Everyone will look back at the wonderful days of the "Microsoft tax" if that happens.

      • You oversimplify. But you are correct in too many ways for me to nitpick.

        A lot of factors have contributed to the $400 box, and Microsoft did so by arguably (and I say arguably only because this is /. and someone will argue with me) creating the PC market as it is now. AMD helped by giving Intel some real competition as well.

        All of the people who own PC's, MS, the marketing juggernaut pushed for that. One of the good things they did for the industry that few here recognize (either willingly or out of b

      • Re:China is enormous (Score:3, Insightful)

        by leandrod ( 17766 )

        >

        Many /.ers are blissfully unaware that they can buy $400 "boxen" thanks to Microsoft.

        Many MS lovers are quite unaware of History. Wait, make that most US people totally ignore History.

        The fact is that there was cheap computing before Microsoft. Several flavors of it, at that: CP/M which MS cloned, Sinclair, TRS-80... each had a thriving market with several vendors, and the CP/M had quite a MS-like effect of commoditising hardware.

        What IBM, not MS, did with the PC was to create a middle ground

    • Re:China is enormous (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dr.Hair ( 6699 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:53PM (#6565383) Homepage
      Less money may flow in to the US IT industry or North American IT industry.

      Adding a new player in to the chip industry means that MORE money as a whole will flow in to the global IT industry. And then there is support and the rest of the follow-ons to the chip fabrication, which will produce new opportunities for revenue for the IT industry, including North America and Europe, if people choose to use the architecture.
      • Adding a new player in to the chip industry means that MORE money as a whole will flow in to the global IT industry.

        You hope so, but that's only if they create new demand. Otherwise they fizzle and we get a minor boom+bust in asia, little-affecting the world.


    • If the Chinese government can go around propping up Chinese industries until American businesses get torched and American workers get laid off, then why do it?

      I mean, what's the point of being the only nation in town that believes in free trade when everyone else, including American importers, are using it to crush Americans at home.

      F---- free trade.
      • First off, Hold your horses. The chinese government is not the only government that props up staggering/nascent business. Would you say that The US government giving money to Lockheed Martin to develop the next generation in fighter aircraft, as opposed to say, ordering 500 migs or sukkhois is protectionist? Of course not.
        Free trade has nothing to do with this scenario. Now if the chinese government levies tarriffs against Intel and AMD, then you may have something. But up and untill then, this is simp

        • But they aren't.

          I've been hearing about the benefits about free trade since I voted for Reagan, twice, and I'm still waiting, as first manufacturing moved over seas, then simple services, and now more complex services. What's left in the US?

      • Re:Why should US trade by these rules? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tomble ( 579119 ) <tomble.usermail@com> on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @08:20PM (#6566173) Homepage Journal
        Sorry, but I can't stand back from this. You may or may not be a troll, I believe you're not. Either way, sod it, I'm biting:
        F---- free trade.
        I can certainly empathise with that sentiment- all free trade really gives the world is unnaturally cheap goods; Cheap stuff is great, but what's the point if next-to noone can afford them (due to all the jobs going to slave owners and sweat-shops), and/or we all effectively become slaves ourselves? One or the other of these will naturally be the eventual outcome.

        But,

        I mean, what's the point of being the only nation in town that believes in free trade
        Unless I somehow misunderstood who you meant, you are in fact, saying that America believes in free trade.

        HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

        Wait a moment, that actually isn't funny. Certainly not to the countries that ROT due to American (and yes, European too, I'll freely admit) double-standards on the free trade thing. America does sort of believe in free trade, but only when it serves its own interests. Otherwise, America believes America First. Policy speaks louder than words here, I'm afraid.

        The best solution is for everybody to agree quite clearly, that unfettered free trade is a fucking stupid idea, and that NOBODY should be forced to submit themselves to free trade agreements in the way that many 3rd world countries have been forced to before they were allowed vital foreign aid.

      • Re:Why should US trade by these rules? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gotan ( 60103 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @12:50AM (#6567921) Homepage
        The US is aggressiveley pursuing their own economical benefits. Organisations like WTO try (and in most cases succeed) to dictate how to do trade, and these "free market" rules greatly benefit US-corporations or more generally "global players". Other governments are cajoled by any means to accept rules set forth bye those global players, but those rules are not about fair trade, they are about unregulated trade. OTOH when it comes to IP the US propagate a very rigid system that only serves to maintain the status quo. One of the most ridiculous examples of this is patenting rice genes and selling rice seeds for breeds that before said patenting were free to everyone. The patent system is actually a very good example: Why should other countries accept US-IP-laws when they only serve to hamper their own economy and drain loads of money from those countries into the pockets of US-corporations. Japan did very well ignoring those IP-laws and getting their economy up, and the US of A ignored IP-laws too when it was convenient.

        So why should a country like China play by a set of rules that have mostly negative effects on their economy, and why shouldn't a country be allowed to boost their own economy? People seem to have forgotten that the job of a government is to care for their people, not for the welfare of multinational corporations.

        What i said here about the USA holds true for most "rich" capitalistic countries and is more the doing of huge corporations than of any specific country, but the US also leverage their economical power to put pressure on other countries by means of embargoes or cutting development aids. And last but not least President Bush messing with the Microsoft trial to get one of the largest US-corporations out of their legal troubles scot-free is another very fine example of protectionism.
    • I would hope some of you can read this before Slashdot Censors mod this down to Flamebait.

      China is a ruthless communist dictatorship. They don't believe in bilateral trade. They are a parasitic trading country like alot of the ASIAN nations. They lure stupid American companies in the belief that with the lure of dirt cheap labor they will hit the gold mine. They forget that China is making moves to conquer another asian country . Also know that most of Chinese wealth can be attributed to allowing the b

  • Why on earth would I buy... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DavidBrown ( 177261 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:45PM (#6565314) Journal
    ...a Dragon chip in the Year of the Ram? Dragon chips are so 4698. (Year 2000 for Gregorian Calendar fanatics out there)

    I'd rather buy a Ram chip - at least that way I know I'm being current.

  • Yeah but... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:46PM (#6565327)
    The only problem is that these "dragon chips" are about equivilent to your average pentium 2, they can't hold a candle to anything coming out of the united states. This chip may work for webstation-type things, but it will be useless for any real computing.

    • Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by psyconaut ( 228947 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:49PM (#6565348)
      Define "real computing"...you'd be surprised how good these chips would be for embedded use.

      Also how much horsepower do you really think you need to for basic email, web, word processing and accounts use? Remember: a lot of people used to run their entire businesses on IBM XTs!

      -psy
      • Remember: a lot of people used to run their entire businesses on IBM XTs!

        The keyword here is "used" ...
        • you'd be surprised how many still run.

          it was enough for the job. they would have used paper otherwise, and i suppose lots and lots of these things are done on paper currently in china.
        • Actually, I know people who still do their books on a Commodore Amiga. It ain't pretty, but it works for them.

          There are a *lot* of ~200-300Mhz machines still out there serving useful purposes....heck, a lot of schools still run PCs of that era in their labs ;-)

          -psy
    • The only problem is that these "dragon chips" are about equivilent to your average pentium 2

      Confucious say, he who would walk far must still take first step.

      Besides, experience with a P2 equivalent is a lot better than nothing when trying to design a P4 killer - not to mention the fact that Linux can quite comfortably be tailored to run on a 500mhz machine - Open Office might be a bit painful, but AbiWord will fly.

    • Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tuxlove ( 316502 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:58PM (#6565439)
      The only problem is that these "dragon chips" are about equivilent to your average pentium 2, they can't hold a candle to anything coming out of the united states.

      For now, that is. China has massive potential, and some day in the not too distant future the US CPU industry could be eating their dust. This event is not to be shrugged off lightly. It should be viewed as a call to arms by US chip developers. If they instead fall asleep at the wheel, things could end up quite ugly for them.

      I am talking about raw performance here, BTW. The Chinese could some day produce chips that are faster than chips designed by the US. But that's not necessarily what's required for the Chinese to win. If they produce a chip with a very compelling price/performance ratio, that could also have a dramatic effect. Imagine a CPU with, as a theoretical example, half the speed of a top of the line Intel CPU, but for one tenth the price. The war might well be lost simply on this basis.

      • Re:Yeah but... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cmacb ( 547347 )
        "For now, that is. China has massive potential, and some day in the not too distant future the US CPU industry could be eating their dust. This event is not to be shrugged off lightly. It should be viewed as a call to arms by US chip developers. If they instead fall asleep at the wheel, things could end up quite ugly for them."

        Finally! After 200 off topic left vs right messages someone gets the bigger picture.

        Two more things that make this more than just another AMD nuisance for Intel. The Chinese will

    • But wouldn't you say its a good start? (Score:4, Informative)

      by gotr00t ( 563828 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:58PM (#6565447) Journal
      Also remember that there is more riding on the sucess of this chip than its speed. China is trying to decrease its reliance on foreign technologies, and has been all along, which explains the huge amounts of revenue that have gone into the research for a better fighter plane when they could have purchased some Soviet MiGs all along.

      This nation has never before manufactured a computer processor of this power before, and even though processors from the US could easily beat it, its still a good bargain for the users and a good start for the country. Moreover, not everybody is a gamer, and sometimes, older processors do fine for everyday work tasks. For example, I have seen a lot of server boxes that still use Pentium II class processors and work fine. I still sometimes use my P II desktop, which uses SuSE Linux 7.3, and I think that its just about as fast as my Athlon 1700 when it comes to word processing and simple GUI tasks.

  • a copy of Windows XP would take the average paddy field worker six months to earn

    Who gives a turkey? (1) unfortunately, paddy field workers don't buy XP because they would need another year to buy the computer equipment, and (2) how much do you bet rich chinese people who can afford computers copy XP right and left, laughing their ass off when they see the SPA and BSA gesticulate beyond the PRC's borders ?

  • All I can say is "meh". (Score:4, Funny)

    by radiumhahn ( 631215 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:49PM (#6565353)
    I have the strange desire to steal the technology and sell it for pennies on the dollar in the US

    Is turnaround still fairplay?

  • Commencing countdown to first occurrence of lame "Double Dragon"(TM) joke in reference to SMP setups.

  • Good news! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by psyconaut ( 228947 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:57PM (#6565430)
    This is actually pretty significant...and kudos to the Chinese for making it happen.

    About the only mainstream chip that I can think of off the top-of-my-head that's not U.S. bred is the ARM (which is British in origin). (I'm sure there are others, but you get my point).

    And for all of you who say "this chip has lame performance", think back 5-10 years. If you had something like this 10 years ago, you'd pee your pants. This is like going from 0-100Kmh for the Chinese....many don't have any computing resources....chips like these will start to make things accessible for many (although not all).

    Also remember back in 1986 when your relative who had a computer did all his accounts on an IBM XT? You don't need gobs of computing power to do basic business functions...and remember the majority of businesses *anywhere* are small businesses with less than 10 employees.

    Technology is also quite often culturally imbred....ever looked at how many consumer electronics devices are HUGE in Japan, but don't take off in the U.S.? It's that embedded cultural technology difference....and maybe with China having some homegrown options, they can develop systems that better meet the needs of their population.

    Anyhoo, just my two cents. :-)

    -psy

  • My random observation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bryan Ischo ( 893 ) * on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @06:58PM (#6565448) Homepage
    I spent a good deal of time in China a couple of years back. All I have to say is, the many people whom I met all over the country were honest and worked very hard, and I think that they deserve better living conditions than they currently have.

    Their government is slowly but surely making progress towards a more reasonable form, and I hope that news technology developments like this are harbingers of improvement in their economy and the lives of the Chinese people in general.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:My random observation (Score:4, Insightful)

      by anagama ( 611277 ) <obamaisaneocon@nothingchanged.org> on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @08:09PM (#6566094) Homepage
      One other thing, 100 years ago, America was practically 3rd world in terms of labor conditions. There were labor riots, slave labor conditions, factories that burned down with the workers inside (fire escapes doors locked to prevent the workers from sneaking off), etc. etc. As economic prosperity increased, workers took it on themselves to see they got a share. We aren't talking about converting to communism (though certainly there were red groups), we're talking about fair labor standards, 40 hour work weeks, overtime laws etc. etc.

      Also interesting, is that even though America started out as a handful of colonies - think plantations, export of raw materials on the cheap, cheap manufacturing (3d world style) - it eventually built itself into a first world economy. And interestingly, England's economy has remained first world all along. Truth is, a strong economy in the US, or Australia, or any other of England's colonies has not destroyed it at all.

      In other words, if living/working conditions improve in China - it won't drive us back into the 3d world. In fact, the greatest hope for peace really is a rising standard of living in China. The majority of wealthy nations have relatively open governments and significant amounts of freedom for their citizens. This type of stability is bought only through the existance of a significant middle class. Desperate and impoverished people are far less likely to be peacable. Relatively well off people usually refuse to tolerate highly oppressive governments. This chip will be good for China, and for everyone else in many direct and indirect ways.

  • Escape from "Trusted Computing" hell? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by orkysoft ( 93727 ) <orkysoft@m y r e a l b ox.com> on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:02PM (#6565496) Journal
    Looks like there'll be an alternative when all Intel and AMD are producing are Palladium chipsets and you'd rather not be "trusted" by Big Corps...

  • Isn't this... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Schnapple ( 262314 ) <tomkiddNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:14PM (#6565573) Homepage
    ...the chip Dvorak said was rumored to be like slower than a 486 chip? The one that was total crap but the Chinese government was all happy about it since they had control over it?

    Reminds me of the line: "If you had let the government come up with the cure to Polio, you'd have the best iron lung in the world but you'd be no closer to a vaccine."

  • Nice SoC design (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:25PM (#6565664)
    V-Dragon is an embedded chip, it has an integrated memory controller (supporting 1GB of SDRAM), USB controller, 10/100Mbps Ethernet and PCI controller. Since everything you need is integrated on the CPU, it makes motherboards very simple [culturecom.com.hk].

    It won't be very fast, but it should be more than enoug for web-browsing and text-editing.
  • But does it run Windows?

    Ben

  • Well- (Score:3, Funny)

    by nightsweat ( 604367 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:28PM (#6565699)
    I for one would like to welcome our new Chinese overlords...

  • But... (Score:3, Funny)

    by dracvl ( 541254 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:28PM (#6565705) Homepage
    ...will it run my Dragon32 [members.aon.at] code?

  • Yet Another Chinese "Opportunity" Evaporates (Score:3, Interesting)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:32PM (#6565730) Journal

    This is part of a trend. Everybody thought China would be this wide open market. All these people were salivating at the prospect of a billion customers. They all forgot that China is so big that they are likely to muster the ability to do it themselves. The same thing has already happened with cell phones.

    This also reminds me of a conversation I had in the early 90s with a room-mate who was an avid Free Trader. Me: "Why are we compromising our principles with China. We don't need them". Him: "We don't need them? They don't need us!". Me: "That's loser talk!". Him: "You're hopelessly backward and provincial...".

    In retrospect, we were probably both right; at least on the first exchange. We don't need China. They don't need us. Sheesh! Why is Slashdot such a dog lately. It won't let me preview posts...

  • EETimes article (Score:5, Informative)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:33PM (#6565738) Journal
    EETimes has an article on this [eetimes.com]. They note:

    Culturecom Holdings Ltd., a publisher of Chinese language "fighting" comics that migrated into information technology in the 1990s, has begun selling its V-Dragon microprocessor for use in Chinese PCs.

    That's almost like vivendi-universal going from a water utility to a multimedia giant! [yahoo.com] Is there some new business strategy for totally changing industries that I should be aware of?

    They also note:

    The V-Dragon CPU incorporates support for Chinese-language characters, according to the company.

    Wow, I wonder what that means... optimized U16 support? Or is it marketing-speak?

    EEtimes also notes that 300,000 chips have already been sold or have letters of intent to be sold.

    • Re:EETimes article (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jonavin ( 71006 )
      Looks like it's got some built-in character generator.

      Able to generate more than 32,000 (extensible to > 50,000)Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters and sizes ranging from 11 x 11 to 127 x 127 pixels
      Capable of generating 3 different kinds of font types (Ming, Black, Round)

      Less processing power is required than for solutions using TrueType fonts

      Less memory is required than for solutions using pre-composed bitmap fonts

  • "In line with the Chinese government's IT policy" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rocky28 ( 641703 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @07:36PM (#6565762) Homepage
    Did anybody else here read the article?

    Did this line send shivers down your spine?

    While I applaud the effort to give cheap computing to the underpriviliged masses in China, this may be cause for concern

    The fact that a government that still seems to be fairly interested in tramping on all forms of dissidence is involved enough with the OS and hardware so that it falls "in line with the Chinese government's IT policy", makes me a little nervous.

    This isn't unusual, MS has always tailored their products so that they fit in with the IT policies of western nations. But from what I have read, China has a somewhat different IT policy to many Western nations.

    An IT policy which drives everything underground, away from the policing ears.

  • Character generator? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pesc ( 147035 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @08:07PM (#6566073)
    As I am interested in CPU architecture, I tried to find some technical info on the chip. I didn't found much, except a large powerpoint file which I failed to download. Slashdot effect? I wonder if they can read/produce such .ppt files under their Midori Linux ;-)

    However, there is much more talk about their embedded character generator! This sounded very funny to me. A character generator in a CPU??!?!

    After browsing around, I found that the vice president of Culturecom has been working 20 years with chinese character encodings. I guess the board of directors has a lot to say about what the chip real estate should be used for ;-)

    I also found this link [gun.ath.cx] explaining somewhat more. (Is it normal practice for UCLA to comment on market opportunities for Chinese companies in scientific papers?)

    Anyway, Culturecom seems to have invented an encoding for chinese characters that encodes brush strokes. This seems to be a good idea, and is likely superior to the outline encoding used in TrueType. It is probably a nice algorithm. But they don't seem to want to publish this algorithm. The idea is to "embed" it in a chip, and sell the chips instead. ($25) Maybe this makes sense in china where patents and copyrights are routinely violated, but I personally think that the chip real estate could probably have a better use.

    Speaking of copyright violations; their web site says that they are selling Midori Linux for only $50. I wonder if that includes source code and a GPL license?

  • [M]architecture? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by leandrod ( 17766 ) <{gro.sartud} {ta} {l}> on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @08:46PM (#6566376) Homepage Journal
    The title says it all. Any real info about what's the architecture (as in, is it x86, MIPS, SPARC, POWER, E2K?...), and how will it be marketed (clones vs proprietary, embedded vs general purpose, etc)?

  • As the poster... (Score:3, Informative)

    by mrseigen ( 518390 ) on Tuesday July 29, 2003 @09:08PM (#6566565) Homepage Journal
    I have to say I made a boo-boo. The article in question actually tells that the processor is available for direct order, not pre-order as I had let on. Not like it stopped anyone who cared.

    (First submission! w00t!)

  • China (Score:3)

    by hackus ( 159037 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @06:58AM (#6569289) Homepage
    And so it begins...

    China has made a few things clear with respect to its rise as a new super power:

    1) We will show the world what can be done and take the lead as a nation in engineering, space exploration, and computer science.

    They started with the largest engineering project ever concieved..the largest hydro electric power project EVER.

    No western nation could duplicate such a project even if we wanted to because of the sheer size, and the use of cheap labor by the Chinese.

    China will have clean, cheap energy for 25% of the nations total needs for the next 100 years from this project.

    2) It has been rumored, recently in a M5 visit to China, that space exploration plans include a moon base within 15 years of thier first successful manned orbital launch.

    It was also made in not so many words, that once they complete this base, we are NOT welcome.

    3) China, doesn't want Western IT technology. Especially Windows, or Intel's chip technology in any sort of influence on its internal consumer markets.

    It was made clear that Intel's Chip ID technology and the CIA's insistence that back doors be placed into foreign copies of Windows, was not acceptable.

    It is forbidden in China to attach any Intel processor based system to the internet with Chip ID technology of anykind.

    This new processor was a "call your bluff".

    After all, HOW DARE YOU compete with Western technology, you can't possible build anything near as well as we can, so you must accept our processors if you want to do business with us.

    It is this direct response to Intel's Digital Rights, chip ID technology as well, that this processor now has been born.

    It won't take China long to ramp this processor up to Pentium 4 Xeon quality (3 years at most), using Tainwanese acquired fabrication planets and technologists.

    In my view, China can sustain its economic growth internally, due to its population size for the next 50 years, and tell the rest of the world to kiss its ass.

    I believe greed, our very own Intellectual Property Rights Laws, and this obsession with Digital Rights Management has locked us out of the only market that will provide long term economic security to the United States.

    What is more, I believe China is using these laws against our very own interests in doing business over there.

    Coupled with thier own version of RedFlag Linux, once China has its own PC, and own Operating System, THEY WILL DICTATE TERMS 50 years from now to the Western world.

    Our business leaders are fools in this country, and while China builds the biggest terrestrial project ever concieved, builds its own Moon Base 20 years from now, the world will do everything it can not to make the Dragon DISPLEASED.

    -Hack

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