RE: CELL processors again...

["Eric Verhulst OLS" <eric.verhulst@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sure, I was aware of that. But I have seen this before and companies went
bust on the vaporware. We waited about 4 years on the T9000 and 6 years on
the TigerSharc. It's called the bleeding edge.
I am getting cautious (comes with age). In 2000 TI announced their roadmap
with a TFlop DSP in 2010.
How do they intend to program it? It has only the potential to replace the
80X86 if they change the programming model completely although some hybrid
forms are possible but not efficient.
Hence you have a chicken and the egg problem because it will not run Linux
or Windows on all processors on the chip (and in a mode to exploit the 25
Gflops).

In the games market things are different.  There its still pays to program
using every possible trick of the hardware. If you can still find the
programmers.

This being said, If they deliver it will be a nice number cruncher. But
comparing it with a transputer is only a visual likeness at the best.

Eric

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Allan McInnes
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 8:42 PM
To: occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: CELL processors again...


Quoting Eric Verhulst OLS <eric.verhulst@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> Yeah, an the best one is 'about us' : coming soon and the menu for being
> added to the waiting list.
>
> Where have I seen this before? i860, T9000, TigerSharc, ...
>
> At least on paper, it looks promising,
>

Eric,
Please note that cellsupercomputer.com does not appear to be the website of
the
actual Cell chip manufacturers, but rather a site for some small company
that
intends to make use of the Cell chips when they are actually produced. I
wouldn't judge the prospects of the Cell based on cellsupercomputer.com
alone.

The Cell processor itself is being developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM - not
exactly fly-by-night companies. Sony apparently plans to introduce the Cell
in
their Playstation 3 game console. That doesn't *guarantee* that it will come
to
fruition, but does make it much more likely.

Allan
--
Allan McInnes <amcinnes@xxxxxxxxxx>
PhD Candidate
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Utah State University