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Re: Transputer Development System, 2006? (aka Sony PS/3 runs multi-core Linux)

Kevin,
I think it very likely that there WILL by such a processor race - it's simply a way to persuade people to buy their product and in some way or other is normal (past: performance benchmarks, recently: MIPS, future: CORES). There has always been uncertainty over the value of such measures, whatever they were, but that's advertising!
Optimised might just be instruction sequences arranged to make it easy for the core to extract concurrency (reminds me of doing this by hand in the 1970's for the CDC6400/6600/7600 machines - "multi-core" in having replicated adders, multipliers etc. needing to be used in certain patterns to allow maximum concurrency). I doubt it's a major shift, more likely to be a tweak somewhere. 

     Barry.

Dr Barry M. Cook, BSc, PhD, CEng, MBCS, CITP, MIEEE
CTO,
4Links Limited,
The Mansion,
Bletchley Park,
MK3 6ZP,
UK.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chalmers, Kevin" <K.Chalmers@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Barry Cook" <Barry@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Tony Gore" <Tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Matt Jadud" <mcj4@xxxxxxxxxx>; "Andrew Delin" <Andrew.Delin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Cc: <occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 3:21 PM
Subject: RE: Transputer Development System, 2006? (aka Sony PS/3 runs multi-core Linux) 


Hi all,

There are a couple of links in the Transterpreter Wiki about Intel's
surging forward with more and more cores, one of which is a bit more
critical of Intel's approach.  My concern is that we are going to see a
new processor race, with GHz replaced by cores, and no concern over
whether they can be used correctly (hence my earlier post).

One thing I have noticed, being a game player, is an emergence of games
that say they are "optimised" to run on multi-core systems.  What do
they mean by optimised in this respect?  I find it hard to believe that
an industry of that size can all of a sudden do a paradigm shift so
easily, without any discussion in the press about re-training.  But then
again I could be misinterpreting their meaning on this.

Kevin Chalmers
Research Student
School of Computing
Napier University
Edinburgh


-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Cook [mailto:Barry@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 29 November 2006 15:11
To: Tony Gore; Chalmers, Kevin; Matt Jadud; Andrew Delin
Cc: occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Transputer Development System, 2006? (aka Sony PS/3 runs
multi-core Linux)

Hi Tony,

Funnily enough I've just read the IEEE Computer article on

virtualisation

(separate virtual OS's) [pp12-14, November issue]. This is the Nth

time

virtualisation has crossed my horizon and it appears to have a lot of
support - I guess IBM proved its value back in the VM/370 days and

there

are
now several companies offering software for single-processor machines.

It seems to me more like having several CPU's just happening to be on

the

same silicon (with cost savings in sharing memory etc.) - a rather

limited

interpretation of parallel computing. I am certainly finding it useful

to

have a "dual" processor so I can leave a compute-intensive task

running

and
still do email (as now) without it going annoyingly slowly.

I suspect the occam community is thinking of something more complex in
terms
of concurrency.

      Barry.

Dr Barry M. Cook, BSc, PhD, CEng, MBCS, CITP, MIEEE
CTO,
4Links Limited,
The Mansion,
Bletchley Park,
MK3 6ZP,
UK.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Gore" <Tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Barry Cook" <Barry@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Chalmers, Kevin"
<K.Chalmers@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Matt Jadud" <mcj4@xxxxxxxxxx>; "Andrew

Delin"

<Andrew.Delin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 12:07 PM
Subject: RE: Transputer Development System, 2006? (aka Sony PS/3 runs
multi-core Linux)


Hi Barry

Out in one part of the world, multicore has got some uses -

Microsoft's

Virtual Server can allocate a virtual machine to a core, so that it is
possible (say) to have one core allocated to the "host" and three

cores

allocated to three separate VMs. Since you can then network these, it

is

possible to have very coarse CSP.

Now what would be interesting is if this development were to go

further,

and whole chunks of the OS be put onto specific cores.

In my area - I do a lot of Windows Small Business Server support, I
could see a great improvement in security and robustness. For example,
one core handling all the traffic to the outside world e.g. running

the

firewall and VPN processes, and everything else communicating through
them would ensure that at least perimeter security could be dealt with
more effectively.

Overall the security and robustness could be improved, because instead
of a monolithic OS that is growing patch by patch, then it is possible
to have a divide and conquer approach that makes use of the multicored
silicon.

Obviously, it would be nice to have a lighter weight inter-process
communication than the full Ethernet stack running on Virtual

hardware,

but it seems to me that the server virtualisation is a good target for

a

coarse CSP approach, and at this atage, we need to convince people

that

CSP is a valid approach.

Tony Gore

email  tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx
tel +44-1278-761000  FAX +44-1278-760006  GSM +44-7768-598570
URL: www.aspen.uk.com
Aspen Enterprises Limited
Registered in England and Wales no. 3055963 Reg.Office Aspen House,
Burton Row, Brent Knoll, Somerset TA9 4BW.  UK




-----Original Message-----
From: owner-occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx]

On

Behalf Of Barry Cook
Sent: 29 November 2006 11:35
To: Chalmers, Kevin; Matt Jadud; Andrew Delin
Cc: occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Transputer Development System, 2006? (aka Sony PS/3 runs
multi-core Linux)

Kevin,

It probably says nothing about Intel's views on parallel development.

Intel's business is selling chips and if they can offer even slightly
more performance for no more effort from customers (keep the same
software) they will achieve their goal.

Even great gains in performance that include re-development of

software

(whether easy or not, anything is more effort than nothing) are more
difficult to sell (recall Inmos).

I'm still trying to find the compelling reason that will convince the
world to jump to parallel software - and thinking along the lines of

it

needing to be new software and maybe to reduce power consumption (as

is

a paper at Eindhoven). This is leading me to think of embedded systems
that are relatively small (in terms of lines of code as well as for
energy or size).
If you add reliability / safety-critical supported by formalism then
Automotive might be a target (as suggested by Eric Verhulst), as might
Space.

      Barry.

Dr Barry M. Cook, BSc, PhD, CEng, MBCS, CITP, MIEEE CTO, 4Links

Limited,

The Mansion, Bletchley Park,
MK3 6ZP,
UK.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chalmers, Kevin" <K.Chalmers@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Matt Jadud" <mcj4@xxxxxxxxxx>; "Andrew Delin"
<Andrew.Delin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <occam-com@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 10:52 AM
Subject: RE: Transputer Development System, 2006? (aka Sony PS/3 runs
multi-core Linux)


Perhaps a little off topic on this one.  Myself and Jon Kerridge were
looking at Intel's descriptions and plans with multi-core.  From what

we

can gather, their plan is to remove any need to develop parallel
systems, and let the system try and work out the best approach.  It
seems Intel believes that parallel development is too difficult.

Sigh.


Kevin Chalmers
Research Student
School of Computing
Napier University
Edinburgh
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> Damian Dimmich at is working towards this; he had a paper in CPA

2006

> that explores just this issue, and has a working port of the
> Transterpreter (a small, portable runtime for occam-pi) to the Cell.
>
>


http://www.transterpreter.org/papers/dimmich-jacobsen-jadud-cpa-2006.pdf

>
> Running on top of Yellow Dog would be the easy way in; Damian is
> exploring code distribution and code generation for multi-core

targets


> like the Cell, and (currently) has 9 separate instances of the

runtime


> environment on a single CPU.
>
> See the paper for more details; also, since Damian is on this list,

he


> might have additional comments or be able to address more specific
> questions that you or others might have.
>
> Cheers,
> Matt
>
> Andrew Delin wrote:
> > Team, I thought this was interesting.
> >
> > Why might we be interested in the release of Sony's PS/3 games
console?
> >
> > Because it contains a multi-core Cell processor - and can run

Linux.

> >
> > Fred and others - I am wondering if it is possible to release a

KROC

> that targets this platform and takes advantage of the multiple
processors
> inside the new Sony console. This would give a true parallel machine
to
> run Occam-Pi. It could be used as a modern 'TDS' with several cores

to

run
> on.
> >
> > Nine cores is very tempting - and rather cheap. I understand the

YD

> Linux distribution doesn't fully use all cores, but perhaps an
Occam-Pi
> build could? If we can piggy back on the interest in Linux, perhaps

we


> might get more interest in the process-oriented-design philosophy
we've
> discussed on this group.
> >

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