Re: Mike and Ward, what next?

robert spykerman wrote:
> On 17 Jun 2005 13:52:57 -0700, "Erik" <groups@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Referencing Slashdot again, I think there was some mention of the fact
>>that Cell is really not heading in the direction of desktop computing.
>>Something about how it doesn't do out-of-order branching or indexing or
>>some-such.  Basically, it's heavily aimed in a specific direction that
>>game platforms can take advantage of, but not desktop computers.
>>Besides, aren't the Apple PPC CPUs and Cells both derivatives of IBM's
>>POWER CPUs?  If it weren't for the expense and heat issues, I could see
>>Apple being all over that.
> 
> 
> For all we know cell  may herald a significant padigm ****ft... It's a
> simpler POWER chip yes, and not much out-of-ordering's not a big deal,
> Could be wrong, but PPC's I believe have  less out of ordering anyway
> compared to intel chips to begin with.
> 
> Good compilers/asm programmers can make up this difference to some
> extent I guess. 
> 
> 
>>I think the Cell processor is going to be in every major console coming
>>out soon.  Personally I'm wondering when someone will come out with a
>>"Hack the XBox" redux.
> 
> 
> Think they have some multicore 970 for the xbox not the cell, but
> that's quibbling. 
> 
> I'd probably see Cell in To****ba CAT scanners soon - apparently an
> unnamed biomedical company has already adopted cell for its diagnostic
> imaging stuff. Probably To****ba :)
> 
> 
>>>One thing good about this whole apple debacle.
>>>
>>>Wait 2 years and you will get a notebook computer with a pretty
>>>exceptional build quality, will run OS X AND Windoze.
>>
>>I hope not.  The Windows part, I mean.  Dual-booting seems so against
>>the grain on a Mac (and a lot of people seem to be drooling over the
>>idea)...  Virtual PC I can see, though. 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah, remember what Bruce (Lee) said. Adopt what's useful, junk what's
> useless to attempt to paraphrase him!
> 
> Use a Mac. Use a PC, use them for what they are. It's only a PC... 
> 
> Apple does smart things... Apple ][ (yeah!).... Objective C is soooo
> much nicer than C++... G5... well kinda... 
> 
> Apple constantly does stupid things too, like one button mice, dumping
> BeOS before it got a fair chance, bloating up OS X with too much eye
> candy stuff...  Stupid laptop battery tricks....  bad customer
> sup****t.. lots....
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Rob

The Linux programming model for Cell

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/pa-cell/index.html?ca=drs-

  The integration of sup****t for the PowerPC Processing Element in one 
of the next kernel releases will enable the use of a single kernel 
binary for all current 64-bit PowerPC machines including Cell, Apple 
Power Mac, and IBM pSeries.

They used a virtual file system to externalize the Synergistic 
Processing Units.