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I think that write speed was also a big problem for holographic memory and that hasn't been addressed. The writing process is typically done using a photorefractive material and this means you shine light on it, set up an electric field and let the excited electrons diffuse trap states in the `dark' regions. This results in an index change that can be `read out' later. The problem is the diffusion time. I don't see how they can make that a very fast process, so while you'll get great read times, the writes are slow. Last time I, speed was more important to most people that size.

From linux-2.3.35/include/asm-ia64/ptrace.h it's obvious that IA64 has 31 general purpose regs and 31 general FPU regs!

And it's obvious from this page from a document that's been out for quite a while that it has 128 general-purpose regs and 128 floating-point regs, although it uses a register window scheme so you may have to shuffle windows to get at more than the 32 global registers and the 32 registers in the current window (at least for the general registers).

Documentation for the user-mode side of IA-64 has been available for a while; take your choice of Intel's PDF version, HP's PDF version, or HP's HTML version.

(There's some other IA-64 documentation on the HP site, e.g. the IA-64 Software Conventions and Runtime Architecture manual and, if a link to it hasn't already been posted, (an old - August 1999) paper on "The Making of Linux/ia64".

Thanks for coming to my rescue! I knew I'd seend these number referenced before - not at this site, but somewhere...

I couldn't for the life of me find anything on either Intels or AMD's sites aside from press releases, so i didn't even bother with IBM or Motorolla.

However, according to the press releases:
Mobile Celeron-266 uses 5.8w
Mobile Celeron-333 uses 6w
Mobile AMD-K6-III-P uses 12w

Those are pretty far cries from the Pentium III's usages. I don't recall Transmeta mentioning these lower numbers in their conference. It's almost like they were comparing their absolute best case against Intels absolute worst case... My hopes are definetly NOT that up about getting a Crusoe system, at this point.

Thanks for coming to my rescue! I knew I'd seend these number referenced before - not at this site, but somewhere...

I couldn't for the life of me find anything on either Intels or AMD's sites aside from press releases, so i didn't even bother with IBM or Motorolla.

However, according to the press releases:
Mobile Celeron-266 uses 5.8w
Mobile Celeron-333 uses 6w
Mobile AMD-K6-III-P uses 12w

Those are pretty far cries from the Pentium III's usages. I don't recall Transmeta mentioning these lower numbers in their conference. It's almost like they were comparing their absolute best case against Intels absolute worst case... My hopes are definetly NOT that up about getting a Crusoe system, at this point.

I have a similar recollection. I believe that Intel made a significant investment in Phoenix Technologies Ltd. some time more than 3 years ago. If you look at the Intel Capital web pages (which list various companies that Intel has invested in), you will see Phoenix listed there.
http://www.intel.com/capital/portfo lio/cspt.htm

I heard rumors that Intel was working on a new BIOS spec that included stuff like built-in TCP/IP support. I can't seem to find any information about this on their website, so either it's secret or they canned it. I suspect it's the latter, since I seriously doubt the PC BIOS programmers will sign up for the work unless they have to.

...supposed to be a way to get better signal quality. Lots of manufacturers cut costs by putting modems and sound chips on the motherboard. The problem is that the motherboard is electronically noisy. This makes for buzzing in your speakers and data errors from your modem. The AMR slot is a way to put these components up away from the mobo without drastically increasing costs. Read more here.

... deveive anti-trust investigators by licensing your technologu to prove that there is competition and then revoke the license when the investigation is over. The point I was trying to make, even the though I didn't realy say much to it, is that I don't know what the agreement was, and neither do you. Intel and VIA know what it was, and one of them is saying the other violated that agreement. I don't think that is an automatic reason to assume the company is an evil monopoly, or that they were trying to devieve competitors. Intel has always made all of their hardware product interface specifications openly available without requiring a lisence (see http://developer.intel.com), as well as offering free support to hardware manufactures that want to make products that implement these interfaces (other than CPU's, of course). The fact that VIA entered a lisence agreement with Intel in the first place seem to indicate to me that there was some strategic reason that they needed more from them than just development support and hardware interface specifications. I was also trying to point out that they don't need to create the illusion that they have competition, because they do. AMD, which is now creating chips that are BETTER (the k7's) than Intel's chips, is fierce competitor of intel. For a while AMD was loosing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, but they were being kept a float by IBM, which kept pumping money into them. This, however, doesn't mean AMD is going out of buisness, and isn't a viable competitior, because IBM did the same thing for INTEL in their infancy, and now I'm sitting here arguing with people who are saying that Intel is a large evil monopoly. I just find problem with the idea that any company that is very successful is ultimately evil, and that smaller startup comapnies are always justified. VIA's stuff was better, and thats good and fine, but if they did violate their agreement, than they should be accountable for it. If they didn't, then Intel is just sulking because they didn't make as good of a product as VIA did, and the'll probably learn a thing or two about how they word their partnerships with other companies. If you are going to bash a company, do it because they make bad products, take choice away from consumers, and force companies to only sell their products, and to not be able to costimise these products to the specifications of their customers. Also, if you are going to aviod all intel products, be prepared to avoid a lot of products that you probably don't think are intel products. Take RedHat for instance. Red hat is owned, in part, by intel. There are a lot of other products out there that are made by comapnies owned by intel that you probably use a lot, and love. If you use an alpha chip, be warned, that products was manufactured by an intel employee in an intel factory in MA.

A (true) cautionary tale: company A develops some software for company B. Company B provides several high-end big money machines (multiple pentiums, hot-swappable SCSI raid array, rack mounted, etc).

The development process (which goes through a couple phases) takes more than two years. When the project is done, Company B will probably abandon the servers because (relative to what's available today) the machines are no longer worth the shipping costs it would take to come and get them.

The moral of the story is a corollary to Moore's law: the power of today's high-end super computer will very soon be mached by tomorrow's mid-range workstation (and then low-end home system, and then embedded chips...)

My Palm VII has more RAM in it than the main frame machine I wrote code for as an undergrad &lt mumble&gt years ago...

Also, see pages 8-31 through 8-50 (pages 303-332 in the pdf) of Intel Architecture Software Developers Manual, Volume 3: System Programming. It provides some details about the process of updating the microcode.

Look through these. There are several documents that indicate which processors have had updates released. Additionally there links that point to additional information re. what's changed, etc.

From the looks of things, it's a PII, Celeron, PIII feature and not in the PPro.

• The strongARM only requires about 400 milliwatts vs. the crusoe's 1 watt.
• The crusoe has compatibility with existing software (not just x86) via the code morphing whereas the strongARM is a platform unto itself.
• The crusoe might have a faster clock cycle, but are the extra megahertz used up by the CodeMorphing?

I'm also wondering what the overclocking potential of such a low heat dissipating CPU must be :-)! Imgine one of these babies in a cryotech tower (this is more or less a joke - laugh, damn it!).

-- kwashiorkor --
Pure speculation gets you nowhere.

ARM Linux on the SA-1100

While the SA-1100 doesn't have the cool code emulation bit, it does run at 200+ MHz at half a watt. The chip also includes vga, irda, and audio codec support. All of that for a half-watt, max.

I still think the Transmeta announcement is cool, but not because of the low-watt linux claim.

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

First, one should really be comparing with a Mobile PIII -- that's 5.1 watts for the new SpeedStep PIII running at 500 MHz. See Intel Press Release for the details. So, we're not talking anything like a factor of 23.

Second, don't forget that the processor is only one component of a laptop. For example, a typical TFT LCD screens consumes around 4 watts. Consequently, the overall impact on battery life of a complete system is going to be very much less than you suggest.

Finally, raw CPU clockspeed in MHz also tells us nothing about how much useful work can be done for a given power consumption, so it's not really valid to simply compare power consumption at a given clockspeed without taking other factors into account.

I submitted this to Slashdot's Your Rights Online section some weeks ago, but it was rejected. I think the article is pertinent here.

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. According to the December meeting announcement, the next meetings will occur on 11 January, 2000, and 9 February, 2000. It costs $100 to attend.

The attendance roster from the November meeting (PDF file, sorry) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost.

Nevertheless, the CPTWG and the organizations supporting it are blindly moving forward. It may turn out it's impossible to dam the ocean, but they're gearing up to give it one hell of a try. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

I submitted this to Slashdot's Your Rights Online section some weeks ago, but it was rejected. I think the article is pertinent here.

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. According to the December meeting announcement, the next meetings will occur on 11 January, 2000, and 9 February, 2000. It costs $100 to attend.

The attendance roster from the November meeting (PDF file, sorry) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost.

Nevertheless, the CPTWG and the organizations supporting it are blindly moving forward. It may turn out it's impossible to dam the ocean, but they're gearing up to give it one hell of a try. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

I submitted this to Slashdot's Your Rights Online section some weeks ago, but it was rejected. I think the article is pertinent here.

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. According to the December meeting announcement, the next meetings will occur on 11 January, 2000, and 9 February, 2000. It costs $100 to attend.

The attendance roster from the November meeting (PDF file, sorry) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost.

Nevertheless, the CPTWG and the organizations supporting it are blindly moving forward. It may turn out it's impossible to dam the ocean, but they're gearing up to give it one hell of a try. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

I submitted this to Slashdot's Your Rights Online section some weeks ago, but it was rejected. I think the article is pertinent here.

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. According to the December meeting announcement, the next meetings will occur on 11 January, 2000, and 9 February, 2000. It costs $100 to attend.

The attendance roster from the November meeting (PDF file, sorry) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost.

Nevertheless, the CPTWG and the organizations supporting it are blindly moving forward. It may turn out it's impossible to dam the ocean, but they're gearing up to give it one hell of a try. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

I submitted this to Slashdot's Your Rights Online section some weeks ago, but it was rejected. I think the article is pertinent here.

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. According to the December meeting announcement, the next meetings will occur on 11 January, 2000, and 9 February, 2000. It costs $100 to attend.

The attendance roster from the November meeting (PDF file, sorry) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost.

Nevertheless, the CPTWG and the organizations supporting it are blindly moving forward. It may turn out it's impossible to dam the ocean, but they're gearing up to give it one hell of a try. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

I submitted this to Slashdot's Your Rights Online section some weeks ago, but it was rejected. I think the article is pertinent here.

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. According to the December meeting announcement, the next meetings will occur on 11 January, 2000, and 9 February, 2000. It costs $100 to attend.

The attendance roster from the November meeting (PDF file, sorry) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost.

Nevertheless, the CPTWG and the organizations supporting it are blindly moving forward. It may turn out it's impossible to dam the ocean, but they're gearing up to give it one hell of a try. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

I submitted this to Slashdot's Your Rights Online section some weeks ago, but it was rejected. I think the article is pertinent here.

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. According to the December meeting announcement, the next meetings will occur on 11 January, 2000, and 9 February, 2000. It costs $100 to attend.

The attendance roster from the November meeting (PDF file, sorry) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost.

Nevertheless, the CPTWG and the organizations supporting it are blindly moving forward. It may turn out it's impossible to dam the ocean, but they're gearing up to give it one hell of a try. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

Sorry, but I can't let this one slide. Where do you people come up with this stuff?

Intel quite clearly owns the StrongARM processor technology, and in fact, over the past year, they've even started to recognize that what they bought is beter than what they can build.

The StrongARM website at Intel says, "Watch for next generation StrongARM® processors to make their debut during the first half of 2000." Read it for yourself at http://developer.intel.com/design/ strong/index.htm. (Actually the quote above is from a page linked to by that page, but clearly Intel is still in this game.)

Besides, I'm not aware of any NIC with an ARM chip on it, although there may be one. The ARM and DSP's (like TI's) are very different beasts.

i don't know if this will be of any use to anyone... but here's a link to intel's guide for installing X for the i810 - it covers the extra kernel mod needed.

Last year, Intel pretty much gave the design of the Pentium to Sandia National Labs and NASA for ruggedization for use in space: Press release

Intel(R) Pentium(R) III processor- Advanced Processor Technology for Powerful DesktopPC

The Pentium III processor sets a new baseline for high-performance business desktop computing, and is also available for entry-level workstations and servers. And now, the new mobile Pentium III processor enables greater productivity on the go, at speeds of up to 500 MHz.

Right here, straight from the source. 500MHz is the max that a PIII will do. The rest must be overclocked. I hope that those of you who bought >500MHz chips don't melt 'em.

The 32-bit Pentium seems to be at the end of its useful life and the Itanium is still years away.

Actually, Intel's Itanium processor is scheduled for mid-2000. You can snag some product information and datasheets here. I believe Intel plans on releasing and/or supporting 32-bit products into as late as 2002 if not longer, but I haven't checked their CPU roadmap in a while. However, IMHO, 64-bit is a safe investment considering it will soon be the de facto standard. This is definitely something to put into serious consideration, and you should definitely consult your coworkers and review your organization's future plans and needs.

Unfortunately, every single vendor and VAR I talk to actually laughs at me and asks me questions like "Can I ask you why you are not considering an industry standard NT/Intel-based solution?" and "Can you really count on Linux to survive the next few years? Those socialist coders are going to get bored and figure out they can make more money in the real world eventually." (actual conversations) :-(

If you're looking for some places which support Linux, I've found VA Linux Systems to have excellent customer support and very reasonable pricing. I hear that Penguin Computing is excellent as well. And also from my experience, I've found Firstsource.com to be very helpful and resourceful as well. Though I haven't tapped them for any Linux solutions yet, CDW has a rock-solid reputation, and superb customer support.

In addition, Dell, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Compaq all offer their own solutions, but some of their flagship products contain propietary hardware which increases the price dramatically for everything. However I do not say to avoid them, as they offer excellent products and support (varies), but keep that in consideration.

And I don't know about you, but I, personally, would never purchase ANYTHING from an organization that mocks my evaluated decision. I would be appalled at said treatment.

You've made a wise decision to tap the Slashdot community for assistance. I hope I was of help, if not, I'm positive that my peers will be.
--

Intel does not need IP cores, and I don't think Intel will ever enter the business of IP. IP is a completely different line of business than embedded processors. IMHO, had Intel wished to enter the IP business, they could have made low-power x86 IP cores available in a very short time, and wipe a sizable portion of the market-there are lots of companies surviving by only selling x86 compatible IP cores. So let's not use "IP core" as a synonym for embedded processors.

Intel has acquired one of the best embedded processor families when it got Digital's chip business: The StrongARM, which already powers some Internet appliances-(Rebel.com's NetWinder comes to mind. So they already have a very nice line of embedded processors for all sorts of applications. Timna is obviously not targeted at the general embedded applications market. It's rather an ultra-cheap processor for inexpensive PC's and x86 compatible network appliances. I believe it will be positioned against National Semiconductor's Geode, an Internet appliance on-a-chip, a great chip that's almost a complete PC. Intel has all the reasons to be scared of Geode, and VIA's own inexpensive integrated x86 processors, since Asian producers will start using them in large numbers when the Internet appliance business takes off. With a high quality, free operating system like Linux, and a cheap x86 processor combining CPU, multimedia and memory interface on a single chip, opportunities abound for companies which want to build Internet appliances.

And there are lots of processors in the embedded market which can TCP/IP quite well, along with a host of other capabilities required in today's applications. It's not like the embedded processor market is desperately waiting for Intel to come up with a line of powerful processors. The examples you give, Z80 and 8051, are not contenders in the Internet appliance market; although very advanced derivatives of these exist, which can be used for many purposes. EZ80, just out from Zilog, for example, is completely backwards compatible with Z80, and has its own TCP/IP stack.

Please make sure to check Geode out. You will be impressed.
--

BluetoothCentral.com
A site for everything Bluetooth. Coming in January 2000.

Farm computers? Sure! Ever heard of Intel's Jones Farm? :)

Intel has clarified the situation.

Check out the P3 spec's.

I've said for years that there are only two things that really matter in this industry: Marketing and installed base.

Computer technology is so complex, and is so often hidden in a black box that you cannot open, that marketing propaganda is far more powerful then it is in most industries. Do car commercials really convince anyone that Brand X is better then Brand Y? Nope. But "Intel Inside" has left a lasting impression on the average PC buyer. I know people who work in retail. When they go to sell a PC, everyone goes for the cheaper model with the faster clock rate, right up until they hear that it doesn't have Intel inside. Then they say, "I don't want any of this AM-whatever stuff, give me the Intel Inside thingy."

Marketing works in this industry. Quality and volume of marketing is a direct function of money put into it. And guess who has the most cash? That's right, Intel.

Moving on to installed base, AKA existing market share. Basically, the more market you have, the more market you gain. Part of it is network effects, part of it is economy of scale. Because Intel owns so much of the CPU market, they continue to own so much of the CPU market. AMD is doing their damndest to chip away at that wall, but it is rather like the sea breaking upon the shore -- it takes a loooong time to gain any ground.

Oh, to be fair, there are other factors. Intel has very deep pockets, so they can afford more research, higher pay for better workers, and the old fashioned "throw dollars at it until the problem is solved" approach. And, unlike a popular software monopoly I know and hate, Intel's stuff actually works pretty well in many cases.

But "sundling" is right. AMD has bet the farm on Athlon. The other x86-clones have already fallen to the irresistible march of Chipzilla. If Athlon fails, so will AMD's CPU offerings. That leaves a single player to control the future of the most popular computer architecture in use.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Chipzilla is far from dead.

SPECint95
K7 700 -- 31.7
PowerPC 7400(G4?) 450 -- 21.4
PIII 600 -- 24

SPECfp95
K7 700 -- 24.0
PowerPC 7400(G4?) 450 -- 20.4
PIII 600 -- 15.9

This info was grabbed from each of the manufacturers pages.

Motorola 7400
Pentium III specfp
PIII specint
K7 specfp
K7 specint

Of course this just gives a rough idea of the performance of each chipset.

SPECint95
K7 700 -- 31.7
PowerPC 7400(G4?) 450 -- 21.4
PIII 600 -- 24

SPECfp95
K7 700 -- 24.0
PowerPC 7400(G4?) 450 -- 20.4
PIII 600 -- 15.9

This info was grabbed from each of the manufacturers pages.

Motorola 7400
Pentium III specfp
PIII specint
K7 specfp
K7 specint

Of course this just gives a rough idea of the performance of each chipset.

I guess I'm still a bit optimistic, even when it comes to Intel.

Oh well... either way, my next box will be powered by an AMD chip. I don't need this built-in ID crap. Oh no! I won't be able to use WebOutfitter!

--

If you're not pushing the overclocking envelope, how do you get satisfactory cooling without resorting to Peltier cells or refrigerators?

I'm making a dual celery box (300A @ 450 MHz) and I've been surprised by the almost Luddite state of ventilation technology in the PC industry. Apparently, conventional practice is to put a fan near each processor's heat sink, and maybe also near the video card and main board chip, and to let the power supply's fan blow the hot air out of the box (perhaps with auxillary fans blowing in or out). No attention seems to be paid to heat accumulation toward the top of the typical case, except that the power supply is usually there, and most of them have their fans blowing toward the exterior (opposite the ATX specification). If the processor gets too hot, the conventional approach seems to be to blow more hot air over it with a more powerful fan. The overall flow through the case seems pretty haphazard.

So the first obvious step is to blow outside air at the heatsinks, not the heated air within the case. I found that Intel has recently promulgated a new spec. to accomplish this in ATX and micro-ATX systems. Described here, it entails a wide, flat duct over a horizontal fan that sits above the processor boards. Air is sucked from outside the case, through the duct, to the fan, and onto the hot corner of the ATX board where the processors, memory, and board chipset lie. They claim it will also cool the AGP video card nearby.

That should help, but what about the hot air in the case? I've decided to make a box with an extra panel inside, an inch and a half from the side panel and parallel to it, forming an air plenum separate from the main volume of the box. I plan to run ducts from this plenum to each hot spot, mostly enveloping the heatsinks, and perhaps also to the hard drives and power supply. This way I can blow air into the plenum and cool everything, with exhaust holes mostly around the top of the case. Yes, this is a parallel resistor network, and it will be necessary to tinker with the duct sizes to balance the flows according to the heat produced in the different locations.

I hope this will let me dispense with multiple fans in the case, and instead have one substantial squirrel-cage blower for the plenum. If you've read this far, it has probably already occurred to you that you could attach a hose to such a case and put the blower ELSEWHERE, to quiet things down. It might also be quieter due to the more laminar airflow (less turbulance).

Alternatively, one could SUCK from the plenum, with air entry holes strategically located in the outer case (e.g., in the front panel above and below the hard drives, etc.). This would be even better, since the heated air would be evacuated from the case directly, and in the summer it could be vented outside the room.

Has anyone gone to such lengths to achieve quiet, effective cooling?

On another note, what about heat pipes? Seen any lately? About fifteen years ago, I fixed an audio power amplifier for an EE who usually attempted his own repairs, but was left scratching his head at this tiny, futuristic, limited-production "concept amp" from Sony. (It's no wonder why: there was no signal voltage until the output stage- it was a current amp, not a voltage amp; quite unusual at the time). This amp had the output transistors on a small copper block, with a copper tube running to the rear, where it ran through a long stack of thin aluminum plates spaced about a quarter inch apart from each other. This was a heat pipe. The tube was concentric and full of refrigerant, which was boiled by the power transistors, forced through one tube as a gas, and condensed to liquid as it flowed through the heat exchanger plates at the rear. The heat input caused the circulation. This allowed the power transistors to be located on a small board with the other circuits, without heating them up very much. Other components could sit right on top of the thin power amp chassis without getting hot. The whole thing was almost weightless, but each channel put out 125 Watts. (It also had a rectified-line switching power supply to eliminate the power transformer).

Now, that was COOL. Why don't Intel and Alpha owners have heat pipe coolers like that? It makes the status quo look pretty retro, if you ask me.

What do I see in my future? Clusters of Athlons and Alpha's for now, and multi-threaded hardware beyond that. Funny, unless EPIC really surprises me, Intel is nowhere in my future...

Not so fast there - put 2 + 2 together. Multi-threaded hardware, right? That means SMP on a chip, right? That means: transistors/mip matters. Well, as far as I know, the crown for best transistors/mip rating in the business goes to ARM - guess what Intel is heavily involved in?

With regard to SBus vs. PCI, keep in mind that SBus is a very dated technology compared to PCI.

In addition to the limitations you've mentioned, I'd like to add the fact that it's a circuit switched bus, while PCI is packet switched.

How about the UPA bus, though - 2.75 GBytes/second on *500 servers... :-)

I think one of the reasons Sun stuck with SBus so long (and continues to in some of its Enterprise level servers, notably the 4x00 models) is because of SBus's small footprint, which works nicely with the system tray design Sun has been using in its machines for years now.

I don't disagree, but I think that another important factor may have been the fact that there is a huge SBUs userbase out there. To drop SBus completely would leave a lot of people pretty pissed off.

I've heard tell about some sort of IO standard that Intel's been pushing of late that supposedly 'replaces all current bus technology'.

This wouldn't be the Dual Independent Bus, by any chance? This is a slight alteration to your traditional cache/bus architecture, which was first introduced on the Pentium Pro. Given the level to which systems caches can affect system performance, it's possible that Intel's PR & Marketing guys got a bit carried away. :-)

On the other hand, I could be completely wrong, in which case, I'd like to hear about this wonderful new bus as well!

D.
..is for D-man!

Why do I believe his side of this story in this? Mostly because of all the nasty things I've been reading about Intel's *apparent* strong arming of Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers, and the *apparent* cutting of a deal with Gateway so they'd stop using AMD CPUs in their machines. Not to mention Intel's failed attempt to *apparently* force RDRAM on OEMs and the market, and a number of other Micros1~ esque tactics.

The fact of the matter is, Tom is very thorough. He was the first to publish an overclocking guide for the Athlon for example. Another example of his dedication is his yearly trips to Taiwan to talk directly with manufacturers there. I mean who does this but someone into what he does? The guy doesn't get paid to do this you know, he's a medical doctor, not an employee of some corporation.

Regarding 3dfx. They've really been acting strange lately, and not a little bit cheesy, IMO.

For example, cutting off Creative and Diamond like they did, and making their chipset proprietary. Maybe they have a right to be paranoid, what with Intel in bed with S3 and S3 now owning Diamond... but this was a bad move. Look at the hell that Apple went through as a result of it's decision to go proprietary back in the days before the Return of Jobs(TM). 3dfx will, I suspect, go through similar troubles, as major manufacturers have little choice but to either create their own chipsets (which can be disastrous, look at #9's "Ticket To Ride") or use another company's chipset, like nVidia -- who is making better 3D chipsets right now.

Another thing that 3dfx did which has lost them quite a bit of market share, (as evidenced by contrasting nVidia's 1999 profit and loss statements with 3dfx's) was essentially ship an overclocked banshee card :) What else can you call the Voodoo3 with @ 16 bit? Then there's the glaring lack of a heat sync fan on the voodoo3s (fans come with nVidia based cards), and the vast, power supply crippling, 183 MHz of the Voodoo3 3500, which I've read has *apparently* been problematic for some users with lower wattage power supplies...

These things don't go unnoticed by consumers, or for that matter by honest hardware reviewers. The benchmarks Tomas Pabst used in the GeForce article are valid, and Voodoo3 scored at zero on the 32 bit true color tests, because it is a 16 bit card. Simple as that... if you'd read the whole article, you'd see that he did list GeForce's short commings, specifically the memory bandwidth problems with the SDRAM versions of the Card vs. the upcomming double data rate RAM versions of the card (to say nothing of the *expected* 64 MB GeForce that I'm waiting for).

I have not lost faith in 3dfx, and I hope that their troubles of late will cause some restructuring which will lead to an increased emphasis on design quality, rather than throwing MHz at the problem. I do have to applaud their efforts to support the Apple community with Mac drivers for voodoo cards, although I hear poor Microconversions *might* have been forced out of the mac/voodoo card business as a result :(

Despite all this, the 3D wars are far from over, and I suspect the Voodoo4 will be quite a sight to see, but I won't rush out and buy either a GeForce or a Voodoo4 until I know all the facts, and for that I'll probably read a number of reviews. I've also found that forums where actual users relay anecdotal accounts of their experiences with specific products are truly telling. If you don't believe me go check out the forums at Intel :)

Intel does sell its x86 compiler to the public. Here is the link to the Intel C/C++ Compiler product page. However they are available only on M$ platforms.

Heh. (for the sarcasm-impaired)

Now I don't think that the first iteration of merced is going to be widely adopted. But I think that the second will move it's way into the market extremely quickly and after that x86 is going to fade fairly rapidly.

The fact that "the second [iteration of merced]" (Are you referring to McKinley here? "Merced" is the code name for an implementation of the IA-64 instruction set, as is McKinley; they're two generations of IA-64 implementation, not two generations of the Merced implementation of IA-64, as far as I know.) moves into the market quickly doesn't imply that "after that x86 is going to fade fairly rapidly". Fred Pollack's slides from the October 1997 Microprocessor Forum indicate that, at least at that time, Intel planned to continue IA-32(x86) development for a while; perhaps they've changed their minds since then, and perhaps IA-64 will be so successful that they quickly drop prices on IA-64 implementations and kill off x86, but I have no reason to believe that this is guaranteed to happen - IA-64 may well stay high-end for a while.

I don't know at which market(s) Transmeta would aim the processors that they're presumed to be designing; it may well be that said market(s) will switch so quickly to IA-64 that x86 emulation is irrelevant to it, but I'm not about to assume that - and perhaps Transmeta aren't assuming it, either.

I know this is kinda' mean, but...er...this isn't such a big deal. I work for Chipzilla and people here were playing with processors over a year ago that did well over 1GHz without too much extra cooling. More than the usual amount, of course, but nothing supercooled. The systems were slightly unstable, though, and they were purely for testing new manufacturing processes. More than that I can't say, since I wasn't directly involved in the usage of the machines. All I know is, I'd have loved to put a distributed.net client on one of those babies...

Please stop making up facts in order to fulfill your own short-sighted agenda

Perhaps you should follow your own advice. Or do some research. see Intel US Locations

Phoenix, Arizona The community of Chandler, about 25 miles south of downtown Phoenix, is home to one of Intel's newest state-of-the-art wafer fabrication [emphasis added] facilities. Products manufactured in Arizona include Intel's latest microprocessors. Chandler is also home to several component design and marketing operations, and is a major distribution center.

I was using a minimal-case scenario of whatever static operation I knew for sure. The point is that it would take roughly 70^8 operations not taking into account the salt, and doesn't change the amount of time it takes by very much. I wasn't trying to be scientific about it, I was trying to throw a rough estimate up there. Besides, doing an incrimental DES algorithm would be more than 2 instructions per second, and a PenII can only do about 800MIPS or so, so you've made up the difference right there. The point is that the system does more than 5.76x10^14 operations/sec which is probably equivalent to about a million machines. Do you have a problem with this estimate? or is it 1M-1. The 8^70 was a stupid mistake, but the FLOPS difference isn't much. Its still a factor of days. This is the only relevent doc I can find on MIPS at Intel.

Analysis from InQuest, including Dell Office+Rambus benchmarks

A performance comparison of contemporary DRAM architectures. Vinodh Cuppu, Bruce Jacob, Brian Davis, and Trevor Mudge. Proc. 26th International Symposium on Computer Architecture
(ISCA-26), pp. 222-233. Atlanta GA, May 1999.

Or here to pick up Intel documentation on it here and here.

--LP

Teasing parallelism out of computer programs is a desperation move when you can't speed up the basic logic of the chip.

A 2X increase in clock speed (and associated I/O channels) really does mean a 2X increase in performance for all programs, but adding parallelism (extra execution units, VLIW, Vector Processors, etc) only wins for those programs which can be made parallel, and only a fraction of the computing world works that way.

Everything else is serial, and requires those clock rate increases to get more performance.

As for Intel "keeping up" with the PowerPC, a friend of mine who used to work for NASA is fond of quoting this aphorism:

With enough thrust, anything will fly.

With tens of billions in sales, and a 26% profit margin (see Yahoo's financial profile of Intel), they've got a whole lot of thrust to put under the obsolete, bloated IA-32 architecture.

Ah, if it were only as simple as the technical merits...

99% of webmasters could take a lesson from these people. I have never understood the attriaction of "glitzy" webpages (for a fine example check out www.intel.com). Prack seems to be "unslashdotable" due to their extensive use of --gasp-- text.

Let's face it multimedia, though often useful, was created for the purpose of selling faster procs, CD-ROM drives, and MPC-[1-4] compliant systems. Many people have bought the marketing, and decided that your toilet seat needs to be a multimedia device. (Okay, the term multimedia has fallen out of use in marketing land, but my point remains valid.)

My point is that WORDS are the basis of communication. Let's here it for words! And let's hear it for phrack for not using scaned images of text on their page!!

Wait...

• Intel sells thier compiler == good
• Compaq ports thier compiler to Linux == bad?

I think Compaq is a step ahead of Intel in the Linux compiler area.... I don't understand why you would want to bash them for it, and say Intel is so great because they support GCC vaporware for Merced vaporware on paper.

If you're intrested in better random numbers on the intel platforms check out: http://developer.intel.c om/design/chipsets/rng/techbrief.pdf I belive that there is a way to get Hardware, true random numbers from newer pentiumX CPUs.

Also check out http://developer.intel.com/de sign/chipsets/rng/docs.htm for more info.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

If you're intrested in better random numbers on the intel platforms check out: http://developer.intel.c om/design/chipsets/rng/techbrief.pdf I belive that there is a way to get Hardware, true random numbers from newer pentiumX CPUs.

Also check out http://developer.intel.com/de sign/chipsets/rng/docs.htm for more info.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Take a look at Intel's Compiler.. If "Intel is throwing support towards projects that are things I care about" where does this fit in?

Also, take a look at some SPEC results for Intel Hardware and notice that most of the results (even Intel's newest entry are with Intel's compiler. If your really interested, look around on the SPEC site. Even AMD reports results using Intel's compiler.

Maybe you should look at Apple, at least they use GCC as thier compiler.