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Hardware

National Semiconductor unveils their PC-on-a-chip 51

Posted by Hemos from the trying-to-move-into-new-areas dept.
KevinRemhof writes "National Semiconductor unveiled their Geode family of chips. The SC1400 chip has video and PC functions built in. The memory and other features require separate chips. The target audience is set-top boxes. Expect to see the first ones by next summer. This is a bold move shortly after selling off Cyrix to Via Technologies. " As other articles point out, they are trying to save themselves by moving into a less-competitive area of the market.
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National Semiconductor unveils their PC-on-a-chip More

National Semiconductor unveils their PC-on-a-chip

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  • Re:FIRST integrated uP/peripherals? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.amd.com/products/lpd/19181g.pdf

    I think that this is what you were talking about. Still very much alive.

  • Re:Anybodywonder .... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I build a speedy little MediaGX 166 for my brother and a 200 for my mother and it worked fine. It was just a touch slower than a Pentium at the same speed, as far as I could tell. In other words, fine for almost everyone as long as you have 128MB and don't swap much. I expect that if this has just kept pace, it should be as good as a PII at the same speed (or a K6 or something). In other words, fine.

    I am resisting noting how nice even a 200MHz Pentium is!

    I would like to see how well this would work as a drop-in networked file server with disk attached (stripped, speedy, with SCSI of the Mylex or DPT sort, and lots of disk). I would see this as an excellent candidate for those roles.

    Also, I would like to turn one of these into a little router -- it would have the horsepower to do a real, serious VPN point to point for me, and that seems like a good deal. $400 as opposed to $10,000 from Cisco? No contest!

  • Toasters (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A random neuron just fired off in my brain, and got me thinking strange thoughts. If embedded processors in home appliances become ubiquitous, does that mean we stop using phrases like, "He's dumber than a toaster." I can image in our lifetime our grandchildren asking, "I don't understand grandpa, that toaster has dual 20 Ghz processors in them that are programmed to understand 140 different languages.":-)

    Oh well, my favorite phrase will hopefully never become obsolete: If he was any dumber, we would have to water him.

  • Here's a PC onna Chip! You can have it for real cheap, and that's Cuttin' Me Own Throat!

    (Note to the humor impaired: If you haven't read Terry Pratchett, don't bother trying to understand this comment.)

    --synaptik

  • Already there. Try ftp.kernel.org.

    Seriously, it's just an enhanced MediaGX chip( (read: x86 clone). There might not be a driver for the MPEG decoder or the TV stuff yet, but the rest should work like any other Intel/AMD/Cyrix/etc chip.

  • "'Late' Breaking News?" (Score:3)

    by Christopher Cashell ( 2517 ) on Friday July 16, 1999 @09:38AM (#1798665) Homepage Journal
    Anyone else notice the date on the ZDnet article that was linked as 'other articles'? Look close and check it out:

    National Semiconductor unveils 'PC on a Chip'
    April 6, 1998 9:20 AM PDT

    Interesting. ;-)
  • Just like the original MediaGX, when you plug a video card into the motherboard, it cedes the video to it or lets you use multiple-monitor support depending on the BIOS and the OS. However, the market for this chipset probably doesn't include PC's with expansion slots in them.


    Kriston J. Rehberg
    http://kriston.net/ [kriston.net]

  • Cyrix MediaGX is a certified as a supported platform for WinCE:
    http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/embedded/reso urces/proc21.asp

    Also, noted earlier, it is fully i586-compatible with an MMU, plus a companion chipset that supplies a PC-on-two-chips solution. I run several versions of Unix-like OS's on MediaGX systems, as well as Windows 98 and NT. It is not the same architecture as the other Cyrix chips. It's an original Nat'l Semi design and the newer (MMX-enhanced versions) had some Cyrix influence when Nat'l Semi bought them. MediaGX is not involved in the VIA sale at all -- it stays at Nat'l Semi.



    Kriston J. Rehberg
    http://kriston.net/ [kriston.net]

  • ... by spitting diet code all over when I read this!

    The rest of you who are replying with arguments, where's your sense of humor?
  • Space versus Time.
    Optimization versus Portability.

    Integrated chips:

    1. Take more time to develop and make.
    2. Are suited specifically to the task at hand.
    3. Are not easily upgradeable.
    4. Are not as powerful as they could be due to the limits imposed by small size and close proximity.

    Distributed solutions (within the same chipset OR clustering solutions)

    1. Take less time to make.
    2. Are more flexible.
    3. Are less optimized.
    4. Have communications overhead between components. (Backpropagation? Crosspropagation? Whuzzat?)
    5. Generally are more powerful.
    6. Take up more space.


    Trends have moved between integrating (wow, less overhead than those wacky multi-piece solutions!) and multi-piece solutions (wow, more powerful than that weak and non-upgradeable integrated solutions!) So the fanfare here won't last long I promise.

    Although a beowulf of these things would have the best of both worlds... right?
  • Umm, what happens if you want a new video card? do you have to get a completely new chip?
  • That is so cool... another useless thinga-majig to add to my dock!

    But... it does run at 64*64, which is just over 4 times as big as 30*30..

    Jeff
  • So, when can we see a linux port for this thing? That is the real question.
  • Lets see, there are linux ports for i386, sparc, power pc, etc. these are all hardware. The idea is to port the SOFTWARE (i.e. the linux kernal) to the new hardware. Get it?
  • 1998, according to an earlier post.
  • Strange, the claim that this device is first.
    Even the device number is strangely similar to
    AMD's SC400, which is a 486-100 core with all
    typical motherboard peripherals on-board (minus
    memory). BTW, the SC400 does run linux nicely.

    Maybe the new National chip contains a higher level of integration than previous devices, but it's still hardly the 'first'. What about National's previous attempt at this sort of thing, which was based on a 486 core and lacked an MMU,
    if I recall correctly.
  • You don't _watch_ your video card to see what's going on with your machine, do you?

    Nope. And you'd think I'd know better than to post a joke to /. without a subject of JOKEJOKEJOKEJOKEJOKE.
    I'll learn some day.

  • Useless (Score:4)

    by rde ( 17364 ) on Friday July 16, 1999 @09:21AM (#1798677)
    I'm all for technology, but I'm buggered if I'm going to use a PC on a chip. The built-in monitor -- even if it's built into the heat sink -- can't possibly have a resolution greater than about 30x30. That's not even enough to play tetris.

  • These are not going to replace your average desktop in most cases. Some low end users might go to it, but not many. What is more likely is that people will own one or two desktop systems and one or two of these low end "information appliances". I would love to stick one in the kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, etc. Then I could catch some news, weather, read email, whatever and not be confined to my desk. Setup a household LAN, mp3-inate my CDs and any of these boxes could pump out tunes anywhere in my house. Imagine a clock radio with one of these... wake up to mp3s, program more complex alarms (don't wake me up on the weekends, holidays, etc... If I'm not up in 10 minutes, be as obnoxious as possible), read time off the net (no more setting the time), with a small display, it could hit wunderground.com (or any other web site, email box, etc) when the alarm goes off.

    The theme is: give your average appliance more brains and the possibilities are endless.

    The catch is: how many people do you know that can't program their VCR, let alone fathom these options?

    Smart appliances will happen. It seemed unimaginable and almost ridiculous 20 years ago that most households would have at least one computer and that most of them would be connected by a global network. Smart appliances seem ridiculous to most people now, but it won't in 10 years.

  • Oh well, my favorite phrase will hopefully never become obsolete: If he was any dumber, we would have to water him.

    Of course, that only works until those same chips become water-powered...
  • > I doubt the average user will ever own two
    > desktop systems.

    I the unwashed masses get cable modems, then they really ought to have a dedicated firewall. Last semester I set up a firewall between my network and the dorm ethernet. I logged one malicious hach attempt, portscan, or other silliness every week. The company I'm working for is making a nifty little firewall-in-a-box. It has 2 ethernet ports, StrongArm, linux, whatever in a 6x6x1 inch box. It's nifty.
  • >Of course, that only works until those same chips
    > become water-powered..

    You mean pizza powered and water cooled. Wasn't that how the diet went?
  • Built-in VIDEO.
    Not built-in monitor.

    You don't _watch_ your video card to see what's going on with your machine, do you?
  • I have been brutally exposed to the "real world" recently (I like using quotation "marks" arbitrarily), and I doubt the average user will ever own two desktop systems. Aside from costs from moniters and other nonsharable peripherals, the average user can't set up a LAN, unless someone, and I'm thinking of a hypothetical God here, could make Plug 'n' Pray live up to its expectations. As for your wired house, I think that when that sort of thing becomes affordable, it will be on a USB-like I/O port. I just pray that we don't end up with proprietary toast protocols, and suchlike.

    As for VCR's, the most I am willing to grant them, excepting Stevie Wonder, is that they might be marginally more bright than hamster.
  • I think this is backwards. It is scary to think some day your microwave might access the web to get a recipe. Another oportunity for orginizations to collect data on you.

    It might be cool If the aplliance had a secure linux web server. Allowing you to browse in and contol it, but the other way arround is very scary.
  • "National said its new chip will lead to even lower cost PCs and other low-cost "information appliances." Halla predicted PC prices could fall to $400 to $500 with National's new chips."

    What is up with this?
  • Microsoft's traditional area of strength is software, not hardware (whether this is through programming skill, marketing savvy or hairy men named Guido is irrelevant for this particular point). AT&T's traditional strength is voice communications, not digital content (and their recent purchase of TCI really hasn't added much to this).

    While Microsoft/AT&T may be in a situation to sell desktop boxes, someone has to MAKE them. National Semi will be in a position to sell TO the Microsoft/AT&T partnership. National Semi isn't competing with Microsoft/AT&T, because the product in question is a chipset, not a content-delivery network. And since the Geode is based on the MediaGX core (which is an x86 chip), porting WinCE to the Geode will be a snap. I'd bet Microsoft LIKES this.

    It's just another platform. Sure, it will run WinCE shortly. And just as sure, someone's going to get a flavor of Linux running on it. The only exciting thing about the Geode is the fact that it's single-chip, meaning that the barrier to entry into 'information appliances' design just got a lot lower.

    It is now within the realm of possibility that a talented hardware geek, operating not as a Big Expensive Company but as a hobbyist, could create a Palm-like device that runs x86/PC software with a bare minimum of porting.

    Now, THAT'S interesting.
  • Look at it this way, at least noone tried to take you up on the buggerin' part ;)



  • Not so. I take it you haven't seen wmtetris [cornell.edu]. It is very small.

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