Slashdot Mirror

Manufacturers are strutting their stuff at the Microprocessor Forum. Some of the rollouts: Turmoil writes "AMD has demonstrated working SMP. http://www.amd.com/news/prodpr/20165.html" hol writes: "German news site Heise.de reports that a German startup named PACT surprise-announced their processor design at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose. Apparently this thing is a 128 cpu parallel computing deal which has its roots in the programmable gate array world." infodragon writes "All Linux Devices.com is running a pretty cool article about an X86 chip running on 1 AA battery. They demonstrated it by playing a VCD movie. They also say that mp3s can be decoded/played on it."

Yesterday, AMD unveiled some details about K7, and today Intel gives us details about the Merced chip. Also, check out some these pages on Micro Design

Chris wrote in to say "In the latest Microprocessor Report, this is the following piece on the forthcoming Merced. They think that the Merced is running into design problems. Performance will likely be lower than earlier estimates, Intel are downplaying the performance behind the scenes, and are saying to wait for McKinley (2nd gen IA-64). In fact, if delayed enough, the Merced could well end up as being not much more than a development chip. So, the IA-64 might not be around until 2001, but by this time next year, we should have the PowerPC G4, AMD K7 and UltraSparc III in full flow, and Alpha 21264 looking even smuger than it does now... There's also another new article there - PC Processor Market Stratifies, which is partly about how AMD are the only x86 maker likely to threaten/shadow Intel in top performance over the next year or two."

Chris wrote in to say "In the latest Microprocessor Report, this is the following piece on the forthcoming Merced. They think that the Merced is running into design problems. Performance will likely be lower than earlier estimates, Intel are downplaying the performance behind the scenes, and are saying to wait for McKinley (2nd gen IA-64). In fact, if delayed enough, the Merced could well end up as being not much more than a development chip. So, the IA-64 might not be around until 2001, but by this time next year, we should have the PowerPC G4, AMD K7 and UltraSparc III in full flow, and Alpha 21264 looking even smuger than it does now... There's also another new article there - PC Processor Market Stratifies, which is partly about how AMD are the only x86 maker likely to threaten/shadow Intel in top performance over the next year or two."

Chris wrote in to say "In the latest Microprocessor Report, this is the following piece on the forthcoming Merced. They think that the Merced is running into design problems. Performance will likely be lower than earlier estimates, Intel are downplaying the performance behind the scenes, and are saying to wait for McKinley (2nd gen IA-64). In fact, if delayed enough, the Merced could well end up as being not much more than a development chip. So, the IA-64 might not be around until 2001, but by this time next year, we should have the PowerPC G4, AMD K7 and UltraSparc III in full flow, and Alpha 21264 looking even smuger than it does now... There's also another new article there - PC Processor Market Stratifies, which is partly about how AMD are the only x86 maker likely to threaten/shadow Intel in top performance over the next year or two."

Dave Harden writes "This is an editorial from Microprocessor Journel which talks about a possible large drop in x86 CPU prices due to an overcapacity for production in the near future - check it out".

By the end of this year, there will be 7 somewhat incompatible versions of Windows. In addition to the current four x86 vendors there will many more, among which Imes, CPU Tech, Metaflow, Rise, Transmeta ( ? ), and Exponential (??). While new hardware ages computers before they are sold, M$'s bloatware obsoletes them within a year. To compensate, consumers are turning to cheap "disposable" computers. But this trend driven by Microsoft's feature-adding strategy, risks back-firing. As component cost is driven down, and specialised vendors disappear, more application specific devices will emerge. Just like Cyrix's MediaGX, they will be geared towards providing the maximum bang for the buck in a specific environment. This will slowly push the single-OS-for-all paradigm to the side. Indeed, as hardware cost goes down, the direct and indirect price of using Microsoft increases: Windows/Office costs money, it also costs a very powerful environment: memory, harddrive, etc. And if computers are application specific, the choice of an OS becomes irrelevant, and each new feature is clearly costed.