|
We actually had a good talk from someone at IBM last
year. If my memory serves me correctly the plan was to move the various
satellite processors found in a normal system (graphics card, sound, etc) into
the Cell Processor, thereby connecting them with a faster bus. It’s
surprising to read in the first article therefore: Sony eventually turned to nVidia for a
PC-type graphics processor similar to the one used in the Xbox. The reality
still seems to be a little short of the hype. The Cell Processor’s communication system was also
supposedly designed using CSP. I do remember reading that the
Transterpreter people (http://www.transterpreter.org) wanted to use the Cell
Processor. If they had contact or not I’m not sure. Another “rumour” I heard was that when released
it was going to be in the top 10 processors, and that the plan was to have them
talking to each other and exploiting idle processor clocks whenever possible.
How true these statements are and how much of it is computer press hype I don’t
know. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried running KRoC on
a Playstation. Linux for the Playstation 2 is available (for example http://blackrhino.xrhino.com) and maybe in will become
available for the Playstation 3. If so, could the individual cores be
used or would it be viewed as one processor? Maybe if someone showed what
was possible with KRoC on such a system we may get some interest from the games
community. Kevin Chalmers Research Student School of Computing From:
owner-occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Delin Hi there, I thought this was interesting - a piece about Sony's new
Cell architecture for their PlayStation 3 (PSP3). Apparently it is a
parallel platform. For some reason I was not surprised to read this: "However, doubts were raised about its suitability
for games playing, and whether software developers could actually exploit its
power" I wondered whether this was due to a missing language
for parallel programming. Elsewhere I found: "The PlayStation 3's primary programming
language will be C, unlike the PS2 which relied heavily on assembly" In my mind this is a commercial example that reinforces the
importance of having the right language. If future computing platforms are
parallel (whether in the lounge or at work), process-orientation (as in CSP and
Occam) is not a nicety but a business requirement. Hope this is of interest to some. Andrew Delin Microsoft Consulting Services +61 (0)8 8217 7417 http://blogs.msdn.com/andrewdelin It is your responsibility to ensure that this message and any attachments are scanned for viruses or other defects. Napier University does not accept liability for any loss or damage which may result from this email or any attachment, or for errors or omissions arising after it was sent. Email is not a secure medium. Email entering the University's system is subject to routine monitoring and filtering by the University. |