A History of PowerPC 193
A reader writes: "There's a article about chipmaking at IBM up at DeveloperWorks. While IBM-centric, it talks a lot about the PowerPC, but really dwells on the common ancestory of IBM 801" Interesting article, especially for people interested in chips and chip design.
Re:IBM also says Screw you to intel (Score:4, Interesting)
Does this mean that ALL next-generation consoles (next Gamebuce, PS3 and Xbox2) will use a IBM chip?
Yeah, I remember (Score:4, Interesting)
So what HDL do they use? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Big Endian (Score:3, Interesting)
Then again I could be completely wrong.
Re:IBM also says Screw you to intel (Score:2, Interesting)
It has been known for some time that the PS3 would based on the IBM "Cell" project, which is some sort of Power derivative (a.k.a. PPC). So yes, as far as anyone knows, the next generation consoles will all be powered by the PPC. With Generation 5 (G5) and beyond, it looks like the PowerPC Revolution [amazon.com] may finally be closer to reality. :-)
Re:Motorola (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, Motorola did build and promote thier hardware, but OS manufacturers did not even seem to be able to get decent device drivers working for it, let alon do an efficient port. In the end it was a box that could (almost) do many things, but at a higher price for less performance. They threw in the towel.
BTW, I did build a server using a Motorola motherboard and standard PC parts. It ran Aix 4 fine, but forget decent video drivers let alone sound. I did try getting the PPC port of Linux up on it, but never succeeded. It did run very stably as a server. It wasn't lightning fast but seemed to scale perfectly, it just kept chugging alone regardless of the workload you threw at it.
I say blame the OS manufacturers for Motorolas lack of success with the PPC.
Re:*sigh* (Score:4, Interesting)
Supposed to deliver? OpenBSD people thought that as well, and got the OS running on it. Now OpenBSD consider Pegasos a scam operation and has pulled the support for Pegasos from CVS :
R.I.P. OpenBSD/Pegasos - All the story [deadly.org]
Sounds fishy to me... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe this is a sign that it has been too long since I learned about computer architecture, but is it really fair to call a CPU that has a deep pipeline, a crypto-RISC CPU?
When my buddy first told me about this exciting new RISC idea one of the design goals was each instruction was to take a single instruction cycle to execute. Isn't this completely contrary to a deep pipeline? The Pentium 4 has a 20-stage pipeline IIRC.
Was I wrong to laugh when I heard hardware manufacturers claim, "sure, we make a CISC, but it has RISC-like elements .
What I am reminded of is the change in how musicians are classified. When I grew up rock music was just about all that young people listened to. Rap and punk music had never been heard of. And country music was considered incredibly uncool. Now country music's coolness factor has grown considerably. And a strange thing has happened. Lots of artists who were unquestionably considered in the Rock camp back then, like Neil Young, or Credence Clearwater, are now classified as Country music, as if they had never been anything else.
It has been a long time, but I remember learning in my computer architecture course about wide microcode instruction words, and narrow microcode instruction words. Wide microcode instruction words allowed the CPU to do more operations in parallel. Ie. the opposite of a RISC. So, I ask in perfect ignorance -- how wide are the Pentium 4 and Athlon microcode?
If I am not mistaken the Transmeta was a very wide instruction word. And if I am not mistaken, doesn't that make it the opposite of a RISC?
Re:Motorola (Score:4, Interesting)
1) 80% of all G4s sold have gone to Apple. So targetting the larger embedded market is a marketing excuse, a failure, or both.
2)Motorola's fabrication facilities have been in horrendous shape for at least 4 years. High failure rates, In one location, they even quit running the fans to "save energy."
3)Motorola has failed to advance in the embedded world as well. TiVO and many others are switching from PPC to MIPS because Motorola's stuff is not moving forward.
4)Brain-drain and 'Dilbert syndrome' have plagued Motorola's CPU division since Apple killed the clones in 1997. They are spinning off that part of their business, but there's no indication that the situation has improved.
Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Interesting)
Woudn't it be great to be a able to pick up and ASUS or Epox PowerPC motherboard and run it with a Power970FX?
One can dream.
On a similar note... (Score:2, Interesting)
This is revolutionary: Self-evolving machines. (Score:2, Interesting)
Did you read this? [businesswire.com] Look at the second-to-last paragraph:
That is the first step in self-evolving machines.
Yes, it is a minor step, but it is a friggin first step, OK? If they can pull this off, they are creating machines with the ability to adapt and evolve.
This is what I would call artificial life. Once that step is taken, it's only a matter of time before the machines start evolving themselves.
P.S. Now think about the kinds of viruses that could happen in that environment.
The complete history (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Motorola (Score:1, Interesting)
I suspect that detaching them from the rest of the company will improve their operations. I know my division of Motorola (automotive) has had problems in the past with being forced to design for Motorola semiconductors. I've been involved in a couple fights that wound up at VP and CEO level, where Galvin basically told our group "Use the Motorola part". I have heard from SPS engineers that they've run into the same issue, being forced to design to PCS or GTSS's desires rather than what the market wants. So detaching them may help them respond quicker to customers who aren't internal, and respond better.
Then again, it may not. They have pretty obvious development problems that cause them to slip and omit features they've promised, as you mentioned. I don't know if they can get that part back to par. I hope so - I really like programming to their DSPs, and everything I've heard from people who write for PowerPC embeddeds is that its a nice architecture to work with. So let's hope Freescale can reverse the recent trend, yeah?
(posted anonymously for obvious reasons)