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Transmeta Webcast Today at Nine PST, Noon EST
Almost everybody in the world wrote in with something like "Transmeta's big Crusoe announcement is today, and it'll be Webcast live on ZDTV starting at 9 a.m. PST." Later, after all the hoopla is over, we'll have a follow-up story on the proceedings as viewed through the eyes of several people who are there.
But if the instruction set is "software", why stop at x86? Go all the way and mascarade as every instruction set out there.
Realmedia is full...sigh, must use wmf (at least I'm at work with windows...)
Anyway, on topic with the conversation, I notice he's mentioning X86 and "Internet" compatability quite a bit. Anyone care to speculate on what kid of add-in hardware we can get for those cool internet-tablets he keeps picking up? Beowulf cluster(sorry had to be said). No really though, imagine a classroom where all the students have these things.
Who's mark allen anyway? He's now helping run the company BTW...
Mind you, that's milliwatts, not mega.
ie 0.2 watts.
Is that 3-0 against linus in Quake 3???? Oh dear - as long as it wasn't down to the OS.
Seriously. I was waiting for some revolutionary, kickass product. What're they making? A portable "Internet device". Yeah, it runs x86 stuff, but they're not claiming it will even run them very fast. Bottom line is that they've made a really tiny processor that's perfect for mobile, its specially built to handle power management stuff, and its x86 compatible so that it can run x86 browsers. I didn't hear any mention of what OS the thing will use, but they are stessing that if you want to have the Internet on a portable device you have to be able to go to the "Cool Site of the Day".
Well, I'm still listening... gotta go
E.
Just saw a Quake match between Dave Taylor (on a Crusoe 700MHz machine running Win9x) and Linus Torvalds (on a Crusoe 700Mhz machine running Linux, naturally). :-)
Linus got fragged THREE times in rapid succession.
The topic was Crusoe, which is what the Pez comment was about (just with Pez added in). Lighten up.
Also, note that he said the new mint flavor Pez, it could be that there is a new version of the mint flavor Pez that we don't know about...
Guess we find out today. Think I'll take an extended lunch to watch....
Ther seems to be some sort of, ahem, problem with your servers? Would you mind publishing the C-day statistics tomorrow?
Theres really nothing to be said until after it has launched and we have more information. I certainly wouldn't mind being dazzled by a revolutionary processor if this truely is one.
Transmeta webcast:
1) Saw it
2) software problems
3) ZD was busy
4) didn't watch/Who cares?
5) I hate Waffles
Can someone pls explain to me why Crusoe is for mobile computers / mobile gadgets and not for ordinary desktop PCs?
I know about the heat/power issues, but as far as I can tell, it would be nice also to have a Crusoe-processor in desktop PCs.
300th post! 15 more minutes!
dealing exclusively with OEMs...They have a 'strong partnership' with IBM and they also have a transmeta enhanced version of Linux (surprise!). I was the AC who posted right above you, but you got so much more info in here, I think we should make this the "late breaking developements" thread. Someone modereate this guy here UP =) P.S. Doug said "wheres the beef?" ROFL
As a last resort I tried using Windows media player on my notebook, and it worked. I'm now watching it.
1) Watched it 2) couldn't connect 3) incompatible sw 4) didn't bother/Who cares? 5) I hate Waffles
"Crusoe is the only CPU software upgradeable over the Internet."
Great...new fodder for cracking hackers to wreak havoc.
Actually, if there was no year zero, isn't the millenium set to start June 1, 2000? 2,000 years from the defining split between 1BC and 1AD! Get out the champagne!
I got a call (Damb Users!) just as Linus came on
They were talking about Quake... What was said?
It IS open source right? Because Open Source is so awesome for businesses and it really works in the real world, right?
Hypocrites.
There was plans for the Crusoe chip inside!
How about the R3000 for fast and accurate Playstation emulation.
Yeah, he did this with a batch file and some perl scripts in 1993! Whats the big deal???
*Snicker*
The webcast is totally ignoring this issue!
It's the million dollar question: How much RAM does it take for all this x86 & OS emulating?
Won't this make Crusoe-powered mobile machines more expensive?
Some fat guy was the second person to ask a question and it was COMPLETELY MORONIC! No one knew what he was asking and it was apparent that he was floundering for a question.
Please?
You can have that today with the StrongARM processor which have been available for a very long time. It is also much cheaper (however it does not run as fast as this one seems to do).
What's the great news? x86 compatibility? Obviously. I'd like to see new cool instruction sets and taking use of dynamic reprogramming of the chip.
The following Techweb article goes along way to explaining what Transmeta is doing. Have fun!
--Peter Olson aka Mr. Freakybig
We turn you over live to Roblimo who is on the scene.
Copy and paste the URL into File-> Open.
on the morphing S/W...However they said they may change that in the future, so be polite if you're with the OSS police :) Specifically the question was if developers would be able to get ahold of the morphing code to make a Mac compatability layer...
/. /.ed est. cannot....post...comments....
GRRRRRRRRR
They're missing something here. Why so hard on the x86 compatibility? Internet compatible? *puke*
Run Linux on raw iron. Perhaps that would be something. What's the big deal here?
true factor. captioning of media is an important endeavor.
For those of you that can't get through to ZDNet (or, like me, get a great connection but are stuck at a machine with *no soundcard*), there's a log of an #transmeta on slashnet, which is transcribing the webcast as we speak. It's at www.nodezero.org.uk/tmlog2.txt
A transcript/video of the webcast would be great for us stuck at work behind firewalls. Also, check out the pic on transmeta of their "web pad." What site is that?!?! heh
It will morph to : R/S 6000, Compaq Alpha, Intel X86, Motorola 68XXXX, ARM, NEC, Sinclair 1000.
Linux Info
It will morph to : R/S 6000, Compaq Alpha, Intel X86, Motorola 68XXXX, PowerPC, ARM, NEC, Sinclair 1000.
As primative as can be. -I. Cantspell
Of course there was a year zero. 1 AD annos dominus [spelling????] happened 12 months after the birth that followed the imaculate conception. When did you have your first birthday? On the day you were born or 12 months later? Only a pagan would disagree. And you're all going to hell anyways-)
I can't believe the number of people who talk out of their rear-ends when it comes to compiling Crusoe code natively. The "Smart" part of this "Smart" processor is the software! Skip it and your left with a processor that can't do out-of-order execution or any other "Smart" function. To all those people who want a native Linux kernel or apps please read the docs before you comment. Oh yea and you would need two ports one for each model since they differ on the backend!
actually ... Linus was playing Q3A against Dave Taylor during the presentation... (linus got owned by dave, but it was deffinately Q3A!!! Rock!)
that's not funny.
but it's green! nobody's done _green_ before! it _must_ be new and exciting! i mean... _green_!
yes ... during the presentation they showed Dave Taylor and Linus playing a quickie DeathMatch in Q3A using the Crusoe...
Guess what?
It's millennium and you spelled it wrong in your whole, long-winded, gay ass post!
LAMER LOL ROFL RLOFLRLOLFLORLVLORLLOFL
I just wonder if ZDNET's core network can handle the slashdot effect caused by all those point-to-point video strams. They should offer multicast as an option..
I dont buy laptops they are too rich for my blood. I was interested in the chip from the point of view of an alternative architecture, an energy efficient VLIW processor to run Linux/xBSD/whatever native. I was not expecting to be given the source to the code morphing software for x86/windoze... but yes I was always assuming they would publish the full specs on the hardware.
And this from the company who got most of their hype from the opensource/Linus connection.
RobLimo:
Well-ee-doodle there neighborino! Uncle Robin here to tell the geeks of dot what's goin down (heh, i talk like an urban youth!). These good people of Transmeta, who I blindly worship because they provide work for my meaningless life, have given us a list of soundbites for me to read, and in lieu of any content or comprehension on my part, I will simply spout meaningless coprorate jargon
"Linux is great!"
"Tansmeta == good!"
etc
[Yes friends, it would suck that much. Especially if the let JonKatz do in-depth reports]
Realplayer works fine under linux on my box. Be sure to enable it under netscape preferences, find the realaudio line and tell it to open with:
realplayer %s
Yes, but because of Taco's pointy-haired intestinal lining, he was able neither to masticate nor the reverse until last night when the srory from others appeared.
Is Transmeta Corp. Public or have plans to be?
This trend was started by dogpile.com,
all others just copied them, shame shame shame...
Free Slash !
I guess its gonna be slashdotted :-)
The first Millenium had 1000 years then the second one had 999 years? The end of the millenium is the end of the second thousand years.
Guess that was eons savings time.
Squeak k1ck5 a55. And it also ru13z!!!
Yeah.. finally a solution to massively paraller pez dispensing.. but how does it scale up in a multi-flavor enivronment?!
kick ass.
If Crusoe is so powerful, why can't it caption this live webcast?
Were you aware that transmeta gets funding from the "evil empire"?
From the hype, it sounds like the Transmeta chip just has user (re)programmable microcode. If so, this is little more than a souped up EPLD. Is this really a "new" and patentable idea?
CNNfn showed the first few minutes of the show live. They mentioned that they were going to demo a game of Quake running on the Transmeta processor.
topic says it all
OH HELL YEAH
Damn it! If it weren't for school.... I could watch this live.
Shit! Now I'll never be able to install and run my Sega games because dselect will want the answers to 5000 questions before it will do anything.
JCs News and Links has a compilation of rumors at http://www.jc-ne ws.com/pc/parse.cgi?processors/Transmeta/avant/sta rt
ZDTV is calling it 12 PM. There is no "12 PM". There is Noon, or 12 Noon.
Try 8080
Guess I will miss the live coverage on ZDTV webcast. :-( a .com
I wish they're not using NT...but unfortunately...
DAMMNNN...they're using the idiot OS...
http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=zdtv.e-medi
Yes it is.
This isn't anything interesting at all. It will be totally invisible to end users. Sigh. They think low power x86 chips will change the world? Ok, so maybe my laptop will run for 24 hours, which would be nice, but Intel could announce the same kind of technology tomorrow and these guys will be out of business so fast it will make your head spin.
Groan.
Ok, so maybe we can do some fun things with the underlying VLIW hardware, but so far they sound like they don't care about anything by x86 compatability.
G.
Can someone tell me if there's a a non-trivial web browser plug-in that's not available for Macs? I can't think of any.
I've heard a lot of people say that Linus is biased against the PowerPC chips. I guess he feels right at home with Transmeta.
The great irony is they have agreements with IBM and their semiconductor technology. The only CPUs that IBM makes now are PowerPC chips.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Those time zone Nazis eh!
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
That can explain the IBM linux hype?
A quick search of IBM only turned up this which is a vendor list naming Transmeta.
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
48 minutes? Did you notice that the time is 12:00 pm PST? You are going to have to wait a tad bit longer :(
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
There has been ton of speculation- and all we know is that it is a cpu. We are pretty sure that it will be able to run x86 instructions though not natively. There has been talk that Linus's involvement is do to the fact of Linux intergration while others claim that his job have him writing more core software. There have been rumors of cavity searches each day when employees are done with work.
All these rumors and just bizzare pratices will be unveiled today and it is up to the slashdot republic to either bless it or curse.
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
You can generally get Real Player to work fine through a firewall
;(
But that doesn't help us guys that have MS-Poxy server to get through as well (assuming it hasn't crashed that is
I haven't heard or seen this mentioned yet. Forgive me if it's been covered... Anyone remember the Chernoble virus and how it could flash certain ROMs with garbage? Since the Crusoe processor uses software, and, according to Transmeta, it can be updated, couldn't someone write a virus to fill this with garbage and essentially ruin the processor?
So far it sounds like they are targetting the laptop market - the processor scales its MHz and voltage to match exactly what is needed, and how much juice you have available. This way, you can get maximum performance when you need it, and maximum life when you need it.
For a demonstration, they had Linus Torvalds playing Quake on Linux (on a 667 MHz Crusoe laptop) against a Quake programmer playing Quake on Windows (on a 667 MHz Crusoe laptop). That was pretty cool.
I'm only watching in bits and pieces, but if I get some more time later, I will update this.
why zdnet? zdnet is part of the evil empire, they are always talking shit about apache and other linux OS. only the one who has windows will see the broadcast.... damm that sux!
esddsp wine realplay.exe -- jonathan@easypenguin.co.uk
- The TV link won't go through the firewall.
- The Radio link gives an error as if the DNS lookup fails, and reports I'm not set up for cookies (although I allowed all cookies for it).
- The Chat just gives me a blank spot in the middle of the screen.
So much for watching history live.pnm://rn1-bld.vstr eam.com/basic/providers/zdtvradio/zdtvradio.rm
Enjoy!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Update: Crusoe also has a 'deep-sleep' mode that draws 200 mw of power -- looks like they do deep evil power saving features like the palm pilots do...
Yes this is my real UID. No, it was not bought from EBay.
Ok, the CEO just said that they will NOT be selling the cpu's directly to end users... oem's only --- also, he mentioned some linux tweaks they did for mobile processing...
Yes this is my real UID. No, it was not bought from EBay.
bwahahaha
moderators you suck
Well, if you want to be anal about it, technically, the new millenium was 5 years ago, do to slight 'adjustments' made to the calander over the last thousand years..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Woohooo! :)
:)
Moderate me down, I have karma to spare
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Is Transmeta going to publish the architecture so that we can make a native Linux port instead of running x86 Linux through the interpreter?
There are now live links just below the top story on CNN.com, but they don't seem to be showing it on television.
Well?
Can I pop it into my PC, download Crusoe Linux and get going?
:)
Deleted
I think that there is more to it than just programmable micrcode. As far as I can tell, there is a FPGA(Field Programmable Gate Array)-like property to the setup as well.
//Wegge
the problem is this: odometers count from 0 (zero). for the BC to AD switchover, there is no 0 AD (or BCE/ACE if you swing that way) so you count starting with 1 AD.
since 1000 years is the definition of millenium, the next millenium occurs after the passage of 1000 years.
to adjust for having no 0 AD, you have to subtract 1 from the XXXX AD to find out the number of years since the beginning year of 1 AD. thus 2001 - 1 = 2000 years of AD time.
the catholic church just went along w/ people because they are more interested in appealing to people than being "right" with regard to something so inane as a manufactured date system that doesn't account for zero.
personally, years mean nothing to me as long as i'm not dead yet.
-l
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RealAudio keeps giving me errors. Apparently the streaming servers are overloaded already!
Of course, you don't get to see the pictures but it's better than nothing.
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
I hear the death knell in the distance of the desolate landscape.
:) :)
My respect for Linus is has died....
'Why, oh Why!!!' I shout as I raise my hands to God....
For Linus got p0nked in Quake by Taylor....
Transmeta heat management due to lack of certain aspects of the x86 processor, and changing voltage on the fly depending on the program is something I have never seen before. My God, maybe its time I bought a nice laptop....
War Transmeta.
Oat.
++Om
Of course, whether they come out of the chute hot or not, we still owe Transmeta for paying for most of 2.2 and 2.3. ;-)
[ comments designed to start fires; yeah; that's the ticket. ]
I expect that there will be stream files of the cast available later. I wonder if someone will hit on the cp command on the webserver precisely at noon...
Cheers,
-- jra
-----
These instructions on the Crusoe, are in almost all certainty RISC rather than CISC, since it's easier (drawing on intuition) to decompose CISC instructions into sequences of RISC instructions.
Some of the boundaries are slippery. For example: Is an intel 960 a RISC CPU?
Anyway, VLIW is NOT RISC. In RISC you have small simple instructions, in VLIW you have large instructions.
The trick to getting a VLIW fast is to get all "slots" filled. Transmeta seems to have a dynamic optimization. They profile the code, and those parts that get executed often, are optimized.
So, in effect, they translate the X86 instructions to a set of simple (RISC-like) instructions that map say on the left 20% of the VLIW. However, if the code is executed more often, the code goes into the optimizer, and a higher utilization of the VLIW is achieved. If they do this very well, that utilization will reach around 80% after optmization.
Anyhow, while Crusoe is not 'just a RISC chip', it's native instruction set must be simpler than x86 CISC, since you can't reasonably go in the opposite direction.
Nope. I don't think your estimate of "reasonable" is invalid. As we all know, transmeta doesn't stay within the "reasoable" boundaries. 1W for a 700MHz processor is NOT reasonable. That's outrageous.
[I just read the crusoetechwp.pdf file from the transmeta site (after writing the above!) and they show examples of the inital 20% translation and one where the eventual fill-level approaches 80%.]
Roger.
No, it's more than that. At least it sounds like it.
Since the x86 compatibility is done in software, it should be possible to also emulate a PowerPC, a Sparc, MIPS, or whatever. That's incredibally cooler than just a "low power x86 chip."
At least that's my understanding so far. I'm at work and getting interrupted a lot, so I haven't caught all of the details.
I -need- to acces this, and I'm at school right now. Is there any way to access IRC using some sort of non-download IRC client? Any sort of mirrors or the like (the main stream's down!).
thanks for pointing that out. I'm just taking the notes down - later on they went on to describe the processor in more detail and it's obviously not as RISCy as one might think, but it's still a much simpler chip than the x86 family right now.
Q&A section (part 5)
/.: Can software change the instruction set of the cpu?
...
PARAPHRASED
Q: christopher - slashdot - can this cpu can do multiple vm's?
A: Theoretically, yes. We're focusing on x86 right now.
Q: chris /
A: Hooks are not there at the moment, but drivers and such can.
Yes, it's possible, but no we're not doing that right now.
Q: Does this do MMX / 3DNow?
A: No. standard x86 only right now. MMX is supported, but not
streaming.
Q: Open source code morphing?
A: No plans to open source it as part of the product. It's not
an OS, it runs only on the crusoe processor. In the case of linux,
however, it WILL be open source.
Q: IBM, partner - do they also get access to your tech? Crusoe as
a core for the processor?
A: They are manufacturing partner, however only transmeta will sell
the chips. It will not be a part of the ASIC technology right now.
Q: How much (price)?
A: In press release, but 5400 will go from $119 - $329, and the 3120
is from $65 - $89.
Q: Internet appliance (price)?
A: *skirting the issue* No real answer. $1200 - $1500?
Q: Linux Journal - Why the secrecy?
A: demand on our time. We were doing something we believe was a
breakthrough... patents filed... didn't want to talk until then..
didn't want to hype - thought buzz would be better and wait until
they had a real product before marketing it. Announcements in the
future will be made once they really have it (as in today).
Q: ??
A: Linus is a software engineer, and a key architect of the code
morphing.
Q: Sun Java project - synergy? Hotspot compiler - will you work w/ them?
A: They have great tech, but we don't want to speculate on that.
Q: "mobile linux" - official name?
A: Linux was an obvious choice for the OEMs to reduce the memory foot-
print for ROM. It's part of our overall platform solution... open
source is a "yes".
Q: Benchmarking: what is the battery life - if an intel p3 lasts 3
hours, how long for crusoe?
A: *skirting the issue* But ours will be better. We'd like to say 2x
better...
Q: Benchmarking: what is the raw performance??? Creating your own
benchmarks generally means your product sucks on existing ones..
A: *skirting the issue again* Check out our website today...
A: Haven't finished tuning the software. Today, the TM5400 is
slightly better on standard industry benchmarks.
Q: ZDNET - nobody else is working on a software-based processor?
A: There aren't alot of people, IBM has tried... there aren't enough
highly-talented compiler people though to do this for many groups..
A: Go ask the other companies.
Q: Where are your OEM partners? Do you have any signed agreements?
A: This is a tech announcement. We will not announce our customers,
they will introduce their product on their own.
Q: Going public - IPO?
A: It's possible. We do expect to do so at some point. We're very
well funded at the moment, but transmeta employees are looking
forward to it.
Q: Is this product windows friendly?
A: Yup. compatible with ALL operating systems.
Q: VLIW, when will we see the instruction set?
A: No plans yet. And it wouldn't make sense, because they do not
have the same instruction sets.
Q: in 1998, what was the "major change in direction" you announced?
A: Something to throw off reporters.
Q: ???
A:
Lunch time. Ask somebody else for notes past this point. =)
They do have a manufacturing agreement with IBM. Apparently one of IBM's fabs has already been dedicated to Crusoe processors.
The mentioned later in the speech that the TM3120 is already in production, and that the TM5400 will be out later this year. Apparently they started production last year.
They have the chips now, the presentation was run on Crusoes.
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Linus has worked on a version of Linux called Mobile Linux (maybe this is common knowledge, but I hadn't heard of it).
They demonstrated a web-pad device supposedly running it, and also a desktop PC running Quake under Linux.
In the Q&A, they said that Mobile Linux will be open sourced, and that parts of the power conservation stuff have already been released.
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I'd love to... But I'm in New York. :^/
This
Actually, I really did mean it as a serious comment. I would be viewing it on either my Windows or Linux version of RealPlayer if the servers wern't maxed out. I just thought it was interesting that they didn't even have MacOS listed there.
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
So now they've finally announced confirmation that today is indeed the day they will announce something? Transmeta seems to be the ultimate silicon valley hype machine... Wish i could work in their marketing department... :)
Is this not just a microcode style processor? It just tranlates all incoming instructions into native ones. Is this revolutionary?
The power comsumption is revolutionary.
- When the going gets weird the weird go pro -The ONE time in my life I want to watch a webcast... I even installed and tested RealPlayer G2... and we have a meeting at 11 Central!!! Aaaarrrggghhhhh.... where's RealVCR G2?
Ah well... I've waited this long, I can wait another hour or two.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
18:00
This is gonna be the most thrilling technical thingie this millenium[1], or the biggest disappointment. I think my pessimistic nature expects the later...
;)
Guess we'll finally see in, uh, 48 minutes.
[1] Yes I know everybody and their kid sister celebrated three weeks ago. Not my problem.
Hmmm, a dreamcast powered by Transmeta processors running Debian, maybe? ;-)
What are you talking about? .ram file. I don't think you need a plugin for that. ;-)
I just went to the zdnet site and there's a plain link in the right-hand box to a
Unless they mean *code* mobility. In other words, it doesn't matter what program you're using - you can take it to *any* machine using the Transmeta processor and be able to run it at native or near-native speeds.
Just a thought.
No, the swirl is really for... a toilet, controlled by a dreamcast, powered by Crusoe, running Debian. Watchout though... somebody's gonna patent the flush on that thing.
Have they actually built any?
Yes. Started sampling last year. The 3120 is in production now and the 5400 will be in a few months. Mobile computer manufacturers have samples now.
-- Alastair
The power figures there are in Watts, directly from Intels PIII Spec PDF, so I don't understand what the p3=10 thing means.
So, this would appear to be it - real portables at last.
So, this would appear to be it - real portables at last.
Mobile internet devices WITHOUT hard-drives! Demoing platforms $500-$1000 !
6 uur, dus over 37 min
Has anyone else noticed that the swirly Crusoe logo looks A LOT like an @ rotated 45 degrees then rotated slightly on a plane?
:|
I'm sure this was deliberate.
$.2
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Slash dotted!
-B
Great, now it's posted on /., now I'll never get through to the broadcast... I'd been looking forward to this all day... *sigh*
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Download it here!
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Any, supposedly. That's part of why it's supposed to be so cool :)
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
"runs all plugins" how is that supposed to work? Mobile Linux running shockwave? Mobile Linux running Windows Media Player?
how will they ensure it plays _all_ the major media formats even if those formats are windows only?
It means Linux will run on top of the CMS layer. The linux extensions they are writing will be open source (hopefully something to allow Flash to run :-) but the CMS will be propietary.
Linus must have been working on the extensions to Linux to optimize it for the Crusoe processors.
:-)
Therefore they will be forever known as the Crusoe Extensions for Linux.
Congratulations, you just invented LinuxCE
why where they playing quake?!
when Push Comes to Shove
am i crazy or did they say a pIII-500? i believe they went as far as to say that the 700 chip is slightly better than pIII-500. i am not quite sure, but they promised crusoe to be a smaller and simpler chip than anything in the pIII range, which is supposed to result in more hertz for the money. However, it seems that they still have the same problem as intel. i take as, eventually, they will hit a hard limit on how many hertz their chip can take, and at that point other chips will be outperforming crusoe. so just maybe the chip is a fancy emulator that not everybody will need. i guess we'll have to wait and see.
nevertheless, 1 watt is impressive. i'd probably get a laptop like that. 8)
I was thinking of how to intentionally fail my drug test... It would make a good memoir story someday.
If the older pez can be upgraded.. then I'll have a supercomputer.. coolness
I can only get audio so I might be missing something, but from what I understand, the 400 MHz CPU is designed for very small mobile devices (I'm envisioning a Palm V). They mentioned that this CPU sucks 1 Watt. WOW. The device they are showing off is running Linux.
The 700 MHz version is designed for more traditional "computers" that would have larger batteries. The one they are showing happens to be running Windows.
The chips are not designed for a specific OS, just a type of device.
The biggest suprise I've heard so far is that Transmeta is working closely with IBM. Was this known before and I just missed it?
BTW: ZDnet sucks. Didn't they expect every nerd on Earth to try and view this webcast? Audio just isn't cutting it for me.
-B
Someone just asked that:
700 MHz: ~$150 - ~$350
400 MHz: ~$68 - ~$89
Then mentioned that a notebook computer running the 700 MHz version (TM5400) is looking at $1200 - $1500.
He also just mentioned that Linus was not only involved in the Linux end of things, but was also very involved in writing the code morphing software at the heart of the Transmeta system.
-B
Well they also are streaming it in windows media player format.. I believe there is a something for linux which will try and play it.. but you never know..
Did anybody else catch the offhand comment about the TM3120 machine that it "has USB support - you can plug a keyoard in if you want."
Is it possible that Transmeta has better linux usb code in their "mobile enhancements"?
in debian apt-get install realplayer otherwise download the RedHat package and use rpm. ; /usr/X11/bin/realplayer %u (whatever the output of ``which realplayer'')
Then it's a simple matter of starting netscape;
edit -- preferences -- netscape -- applications and new/edit the mimetype
Description: Realplayer streaming audio/video
Mime-type: audio/x-pn-realaudio
Suffixes: rm,ra,ram
Application:
If a trainstation is the place where trains stop, what is a workstation?
These guys keep talking about playing DVDs like they can do this on Linux. Does that mean soon for everyone else?
On another note, I like their pricing scheme of $500-1000 to start out for the webpad. It's not freakin crippled like the WebTV and some of the other internet appliances of late, you can actually use productivity apps too. They didn't exactly state though how upgrades and loading software could be done. I recall the bearded speaker saying that there is no hard drive on the webpad device, but one could be added. Can you upgrade the kernel? If so it would be a custom kernel from Transmeta.Now maybe when I get a laptop it won't SUCK. I'm giddy with excitement.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
From the source of www.transmeta.com:
(dunno if this has been posted already, but I couldn't find anything about this in the comments on this page)...
<!-- Yes, there is a secret message, and this is it:
Transmeta's policy has been to remain silent about its plans
until it had something to demonstrate to the world.
On January 19th, 2000, Transmeta is going to announce and demonstrate
what Crusoe processors can do.
Simultaneously, all of the details will go up on this Web site
for everyone on the Internet to see.
Crusoe will be cool hardware and software for mobile applications.
Crusoe will be unconventional, which is why we wanted
to let you know in advance to come look at the entire Web site
in January, so that you can get the full story and have access to all
of the real details as soon as they are available. -->
-- close but no sig
This isn't as exciting as they've made it out to be. The "code morhping" is nothing more than a specialized dynamic translation engine. The power management stuff is interesting, but a creative hacker could probably do (to a limited extent) the same thing on many modern PCs. Look at programs like SoftFSB and look at the power saving features of the current boards. It would be very interesting to see a kernel module that would look at the run queue and step down the CPU clock rate until it crept up again.
This works, even on RV 5.0. (Solaris even!)
Hoorah!
------ Nope, Not me, you can't prove I said that!
Hey! One of the laptops on this page shows Slashdot. Hard to tell what day, tho.
Murphy's law - "Anything that can go wrong, will." (Actually, this is Finagle's law, which in itself shows that Finagle
Absolutely it can do Java bytecode. Dave (the president) said that they had a demo machine running both Java bytecode and X86 at the same time. I would think the efficiency & optimizations would suffer, though.
Murphy's law - "Anything that can go wrong, will." (Actually, this is Finagle's law, which in itself shows that Finagle
Well, close. Since the Crusoe700 ends up emulating a PIII-500, it still ends up being "only" 15 times less power consumption.
Whether this translates directly (1:1) into heat dissipation and battery life, I'm not sure.
However, there are a couple other questions:
1) How does this Power consupmtion compare with the chips in other small computing appliances, like the Palms and WinCE pieces.
2) Will this much horspower actually validate WinCE as a platform, or are we better off applying the power to a more elegant solution?
--sugarman--
are you confusing ZDTV with cNet? Paul Allen = cNet.
I cannot get through any port besides 80 here. Real player is not possible here :(
maybe someone can post just the gist of it (if it's too long to transcribe?)
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
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.
-- Daniel Neades, Araxis Ltd (www.araxis.com)
I wonder if Crusoe will come with a coprocessor called Friday.
MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/358517.asp
ZDNet: http
CNN: http://www.cnn. com/2000/TECH/computing/01/19/crusoe1.idg/index.h
BTW, Arstechnica is promising an in-depth look at the CPU later today from their CPU expert.
They're saying that Linux can be stored in ROM so a hard disk is not needed.
I actually got out of work, cruised at 80mph on the streets to get to my house and try to watch a decent broadcast of the Transmeta announcement on DSS and guess what? THEY'RE SHOWING THOSE DAMN SCREEN SAVER RERUNS!!!
I had to watch the announcement with my 56k modem. =(
Does anyone have any information on when/if they're going to show the announcement on TV???
What's the TV on ZDTV for, if I can't watch what surely must be the best computer related story on TV. Guess Television broadcasts will be dead in a couple of years. Everything will be webcasted.
Seeya!
Signatures are supposed to be funny?
There's an engineers briefing going on now (including Linus), we should get some more meat and potatos out of this...
-- My neighbors dog has a four inch clit.
If the Realvideo doesn't work, try the Windows media player.
/trans.ram HTTP/1.0
Gee Thanks.
$ telnet zdtv.e-media.com 80
Trying 209.249.117.91...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
$ telnet zdtv.e-media.com 80
Trying 209.249.117.91...
Connected to zdtv.e-media.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET
HTTP/1.1 500 Server Error
Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 17:14:40 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 116
ErrorNot enough storage is available to process this command. Connection closed by foreign host.
And don't forget cooking.com!
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
Can anyone post a text transcript? Or even better, does anyone know of a site where some sort of real-time (or semi-real-time) mirroring of the broadcast is taking place? Even an ongoing text webcast.
Real format from zdtv seems to be bogged down beyond hope, and of course some of us don't have access to the Windows Media Player alternative.
I'm going to look around on irc in a moment-
keete
-
keete
-
keete
Maybe they plan to market a Debian distribution
that runs on a mobile Dreamcast?
Now, seriously, what a lame logo! You'd think with that name (and all their marketing $$$) they'd be able to do something better.
Slashdot is on the ball, they've even added the Transmeta logo to the story for our viewing pleasure.
Or is Torvolds an alternate spelling? From the ZDTV link:
"Linus Torvolds,part of the Transmeta team, said in his Comdex keynote speech that Crusoe would be essentially "software-powered."
Best new white rapper since Pimp Daddy Welfare... Pimp-T!
Crusoe is a processor that is fully x86 compatible that only takes 1 Watt. 1 WATT!!! They are introducing two versions 400 MHz and 700 MHz.
Did you never see Pi (The movie)? Swirls are everywhere!
They appear to have some java bytecode running as well, and it IS possible to emulate other processors. They have done MMX but not SSI/3DNow.
They aren't opensourcing their system for coding the software part of the processor.
~~
Well that'll be why it is cheap - the vast majority of the cost will probably come from the extremely fast local memory that will be required by the processor because it is software based.
Do they mean software based in the same way that the 6800 (not 68000) was software based - an onboard ROM (well, RAM in transmetas case) that contains instructions on how to control the hardware part of the chip?
Thanks for the updates, I cannot get any of the broadcasts.
~~
The BIG NEW THING about this chip is that is supports the os. It pretends to be a x86 chip.
Processor Price
:) Yeah!
--------- --------
5400 $149-300
3900 $50-70
They will not be releasing the code-morphing
software open source, however all linux
components will be open source ("obviously").
Slashdot.org got one of the first couple
questions!!
--Remove chicken to e-mail
There aren't any problems with the Windows Media Player streams... ;-)
C'mon gang, you know it's gonna be /.'ed...
The real mysteries are going to be revealed by Nitrozac on AfterY2K!!!!!!
--
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
I go to the Webcast website about 5 minutes before the cast itself. It doesn't work. I reload. It takes around a minute to load, but it's there.
The ZD radio link doesn't work.
The Realplayer says that the server's too busy.
And they've got TWO Microshaft-only broadcasts.
Then the Oxford network goes down for 40 mins.
Poo.
So, will there still be a recorded webcast available? If so, where? If not, why not?
Why didn't ZD have at least 2 Real streams?
And is there *any* Linux software which can view M$ streaming format? Of course, it wouldn't be necessary if sites posted in MPEG or even Real format (decent cross-platform). Why do they insist on forcing M$ down people's throats? (Sorry, that was a rant. Ignore that last sentence.)
Common sense is a set of prejudices built up over a lifetime
Would somebody who isn't plagued by firewall limitations mind giving periodic updates while the announcement is being made?
--
"A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman who has lost an eye." -- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
They just announced that Mark Allen is President and COO.
If he says "Fully Internet Compatiable" one more time, I think I'm gonna puke.
What was this guy talking about?
(paraphrasing)"if you don't have an x86 PC you can't open an excel document"?!?! -- or "without x86 you can't run a Macromedia Flash plugin"?!?!!
Chip architecture has *nothing* to do with ability to decode data. It may change the rules (endianness, alignment, etc..) but it has zero relevance to a processor family's ability to decode data. Mac's read PC format data. PC's decode EBCDIC data from ES/9000's. My Sparc 10 has zero problems sharing data with my PIII.
I hope, beyond hope, that this is just another example of a clueless marketing delbert yammering moronically about technology he doesn't understand.
I was so embarrassed for Transmeta I had to stop viewing the broadcast.
"Internet Compatability", indeed.
I figured that since I have DSS with ZDTV, I figured I would watch it in *good* quality there. Well guess what: ZDTV (the cable/satellite station) is not carrying this. They are showing their same old boring 8 hours of "The Screen Savers" repeats. They obviously don't think too highly of Transmeta if they are only willing to host a webcast.
Is it only x86? I still haven't absorbed everything, but it seems that you could emulate other instruction sets. Or a totally new one. Or, could you right directly with the VLIW instruction set? Could you put a small footprint, high power OS in flash rom with the VLIW instruction set?
Come on, guys. So far all I see are people whining about the marketing guys, or it's just another intel chip, pretty much everything but the technology. Does anyone have any opinion or original thoughts at all on what this technology can really do? Right now? Never mind what intel mind release next week. I don't care about marketing. I'm a nerd. This sounds cool.
What do the nerds here think?
Jason
Quit complaining, and go download either Real Media Player or Windows Media Player for the mac. Would've preferred them to use Quicktime though. I can't stand Real Players GUI.
--
Donald Roeber
Donald Roeber
Generating 2048 Bits of Randomness...
Eww..its alway's so nerve-racking listening to the questions of 'mainstream' media people. They have negative clue technology wise--just enough knowledge to ask incredibly inane questions.
Like the CNN guy who asked wether the processor would help Window's run 'better' (more stable.) Uh yeah dude, sure. They thought they'd back engineer Windows because they had a little extra time to kill. He made clear he didn't understand the technology _at all_ by asking a question like that.
The rest of the stuff on MSNBC (of course) and news.com isn't much better.
Its always fun to watch a primary source and then read the news; you find out how much is distorted or abstracted away.
Would they send a reporter to Bosnia who didn't have a clue about european politics or history? Oh..wait a minute..they probably would.
Can I get this to emulate my Amstrad 464? I missing playing Dizzy....
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
Transmeta has not invented a new cpu. It has designed software, specifically code morphing.
-end quote-
They did invent/design a new cpu. It just happens to be 3/4 software. But if they had not invented a new CPU they would never have been able to acheive a power consumption of just 1 watt.
... and all the screen says is
Transmeta Breaks the Silence,
Unveils Smart Processor
to Revolutionize
Mobile Internet Computing
If I had a hammer, I'd hit my thumb with it. Makes me glad I don't have a nail, either.
Linus needs to work on his Quake skills.
Mobile Beowulf
:)
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
They just said the Code Morphing stuff would remain proprietary for now, but the Linux mobile stuff would be open source. I wonder what exactly that means.
-Jeff
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
It's really hard to figure out what he's talking about, because he's using a mix of manager-speak and techie-speak, which means neither managers nor techies can understand.
The CPU does on-the-fly translations. No real revelations. But he's using terms like, "the processor only translates the part of the program you're using, not the entire program." Well, duh! That's because translating the whole program would be more difficult!!!
And he claims to be an engineer, too. I guess his tie is constricting the blood flow too his brain.
In the meantime, I've noticed that Slashdot has been slashdotted. Oh, and it appears that Crusoe can slow itself down when it's doing somehthing non CPU-intensive. It can reduce the MHz and voltage dynamically to adjust for lower CPU usage.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Since the code is compiled at run-time, does this mean that processing will involve the same level of complexity, and hence bugginess, as the average compiler ?
Although these new processors have their own instruction sets, it seems they're not going to be available to programmers. And although programs can be compiled to any of the emulated instruction sets, these instruction sets are not designed with translation in mind, and will not be optimal. So, do Transmeta have any plans to release a "nominally native" instruction set for these CPUs ?
No wonder the quake 3 arena source was recently released... it was so Linus could play Dave Taylor in q3a to demo Crusoe! For the record, what I saw was: Dave: 3 Linus: 0
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth fro
I seem to recall that the AMD Athlon does a similar x86-RISC translation, though it uses a tad more power than 1 watt. And doesn't the Itanium plan to do something similar as well?
Someone please explain what is so new, except for the low power consumption
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
And only One watt of power use. They said that your laptop should be able to run all day without a recharge. Of course this is marketing speak, I'll believe it when I see it. But still this is what it's going to take to get the mobile market to take off. I absolutly HATE it when my laptop goes dead halfway through something.
There's a mirror of the logs at nodezero.org.uk at http://printf.net/ . Chris/Thoric. --
This will not help today as the server was overloaded at 8:55am, but for future reference...
/home/user/RealPlayG2/realplay %s)
[Note: RTFM; the following is all in the readme file that comes with the player]
if you want the player to open automagically from Netscape, you must go, in NS, to:
Edit -> Preferences -> Navigator -> Applications ->New
Then enter the following info:
Description: RealPlayer G2
MIMEType: audio/x-pn-realaudio
Suffixes: ra,rm,ram
Application: realplay %s
(if the realplayer binary is not installed on your path precede with the pathname e.g.
when counting the years in a millenium, by mispositioning the first boundary. If you have a fence 2000 metres long, with a post every metre, how many posts do you need? And where is the first post?
Lets look at a simpler case:
Assume this is a 10 m long fence. How many posts are there? Eleven.
I---I---I---I---I---I---I---I---I---I---I
If the space between the posts represents years, then we have 10 years here, with eleven boundaries. Our question is where the boundary falls for the end of the decade (in our simple case). _If_ the first boundary represents the transition from, say, 1989 to 1990 then the end of the decade falls at the eleventh boundary, the transition from 1999 to 2000.
However, such is not the case. If we examine a parallel case at the beginning of the calendar, we would have a first year of zero. But there is no Year Zero. Years are not represented with the set of whole numbers, but with the set of natural numbers, beginning at 1. Preceding Year One is a mirror image extending backward in time, designated as B.C. The calendar is not represented with integers, as there is no zero in the set of years.
So we rebuild our fence starting at year one. The end of the first decade is thus at the boundary between Year 10 and Year 11. The first century ends at the boundary between Year 100 and Year 101. And the first millenium ends at the boundary between Year 1000 and Year 1001.
Thus our current decade, and millenium, ends at the boundary between 2000 and 2001.
This argument can be made for any calendar that uses Natural numbers.
p.s. The Catholic Church's view is entirely irrelevant. If your "logic" is based on the pronouncements of the Pope or any other religious leader, you are reading the wrong forum. Humankind has spent far too much time and blood arguing about ridiculous religious crap throughout the millenia. If you wish to make a religious argument for the end of the millenium go to www.*zealot.org or whatever.
somehow this humors me :) The feed via Windows Media player is still open, if you have a PC handy. Windows Media player link
lame ZDNET's real player servers are full right now...
Anyone have any Ideas on how I can follow the procedings with only fpt and http holes punched in my company's firewall????
I'm real interested in this announcement and can call it official business but there is no way the Firewall Nazi's in my company are going to punch any other holes.
<This .sig left intentionally blank>
code morphin'
Mighty Morphin' Code Rangers...
-- I could prove I'm right, but I my hard drive's full.
For what it's worth, here's a copy of the chat room transcript of the Transmeta presentation, taken from http://www.nodezero.org.uk/tmlog2.txt.
... "the first SMART processor"
I've filtered the page to show only the text from
the user 'aka_arthur', who was supposedly writing
as he heard the broadcast:
HTH
Scott
---------------------------------------------
TRANSMETA.TXT: transcript of Transmeta Crusoe introduction Wed., Jan 19,2000
From: Chat on www.nodezero.org.uk/tmlog2.txt
me
not me
I'll just do the first fiveminute
thank you
I'll try, but my typing skillz aren't lame
or, are lame
I'll do what I can
11:59
well, it's 12:00
nothing yet
5 minutes
audio feed
they just announced the announcement's in 5 minutes
=)
audio quality sucks
Anybody else have the feed?
I don't know how long I can keep up
msg me
startinhg
just the highlights
Mobile computing
he's going over how silent they've been
synrG's a little ahead of me
Linus is on the list
for Q&A
then Ditzel another summary
heh
design time for CISC high
1988 seems to be the year this started
looks like it's for laptops
most of the demo machines are laptops
(is commenting on the visuals)
new CPU is porlbematic
no software
x86 compatibility big goal
biggest sw base
Software is supposed to learn as it runs
saves battery poewr as it woks
formed in 1995
decided to focus on mobile market
"the neatest idea of the last decade"
Crusoe line
brand name
instruction set implemented entirely in sw
tech slide coming up
can't read it
software optimized execution
(name of the process)
the hardware is very simple, very fast
700mhx and a 400 mhx model
1 wat
400k on the high-end
both 1 watt
summary : 400 mhz, 100 K, 1 watt, AND a 700mhz, 400k, 1watt
it's a tablet
just a screen, no kb
video quality is also not topnotch here =)
sep: looks like
notebook 700mhz
about the company and the developers
1st rule the internet changes everything
Cursue designed for cleint side
Computing is going mobile (rule #2)
email with attachments
:fully internet compatible" -- he really said that
must run broswer and plugins
(the idea is basicaly to avoid the problems of hte mac by making it so
developers don't have to port apps, since you've got x86 binary compat)
he's using the tablet screened computer with no separate KB for his demos
other transcribers: I got video, I'll try to do the slides
battery life, lower size, no fans,
mobile client, web pad,
thin, light mobile pc
(web pad == no separate kb)
best known ops guys in silicon v
over 200 empls
taiwan, japan
hugh barnes, board member (ex compaq vp and cto)
Murry Goldman (?)\
yes
Murray Goldman, chairman
VP of semic. products at Motorola
(that's goldman)
barnes was at compaq
Partner w ibm, soros, allen's Vulcan adventures,m Deutsche bank, Tudor
lots stream
lost the stream
OK, I know wha tI wanted to know anyhow =)
best, y'all
-- END --
In all of this, I do not know which is funnier, either A) Transmeta is being /.'ed, or B) that /. is being /.'ed!
Isn't there a mirror of Transmeta someplace?
>>>>>>CSG_SurferDude
Imagine a picture of a MadCat riding a surfboard here!
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Supposedly they'll present a design of the chip, not a real silicon thing.
I hope too that CNN broadcasts pictures on this, we don't have ZDTV here in Europe, and I can't watch via internet.
Bizar technology?
zes uur precies
Bizar technology?
And I thought I played a bad game of Quake :)
I read slashdot for the articles.
does anyone know what kind of assm. this will take? is it mips? x86? something cooler? is it for pda's of notebooks?
i only want to know one thing: can i play quake on it?, oh and one more, if so, can i network them and have quake-pda lanparties?
I've been waiting since Fall Comdex to here about what Transmeta was going to announce today! I am so excited! Visit my page http://zionbcbball.homepage.com
"...and postin me too like some brain at AOL-er" -- Wierd Al
I tried to grab the G2 Linux Player from www.real.com, but I got a big red message saying "This Product/OS/Processor combination is not available". Is Realplayer 5 the latest version? If there is a G2, where can I find it?
;-)
Quick! I've got 30 minutes!
Is there any way to capture and archive the stream as it plays? We could mirror it afterwards for those whom the Slashdot/Firewall effect squeezes out...
Just a thought...
Essentially, this is the essence of the whole thing: (This is paraphrased, but very close to exact, and was said by the guy with glasses during the Q&A session) "Imagine a car that goes 100mph and gets 10mpg, and another car that goes 90mph and gets 30mpg. If you only need to go 100 miles, the first car will do it for you. But if you want to go 200 miles and beyond, the second one is the obvious choice." So, in other words, the only benefit at this time is that the Crusoe will run longer (but not faster) than an equivalent PC laptop. Uhm...BFD (Big F'in Deal). And they can forget about those webpads ever catching on... What they need to focus on to get me excited is cross-platform support. In other words, I get a laptop running the crusoe processor, and thier version of mobile linux, with a custom GUI, that runs Windows and Mac apps without having to enter into any emulators (the emulation should be done at the OS level instead of using Wine, etc.) Then, and only then, will they have something worth buying. As it stands, I'm not a potential customer, not matter how much Linus is involved. Andy
The processor is low power, for mobile computers, with some onboard cache. 400MHz processor with 100K cache; 700MHz processor with 400K cache. Only 1 watt power usage for either processor. That's good.
A handheld flatscreen computer with a "popup" keyboard seems to run Linux, but everything else is running Microsloth.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
During the Q&A, someone mentioned emulating PowerPC, etc. and they allowed as it was possible to do so with the VLIW instructions, but that the initial processors would only do x86 and that the VLIW instructions would not be directly accessible so that someone could write their own emulator for instruction set X.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Hi
You have to register the g2 Player to the netscape
software.
look into The Directory, that has been created by the "installation program". There is a README file
that says what to do.
At least it worked fine for me.
Curious what will happen...
Ceci n'est pas une sig
Any idea on prices for these things? Apparently they demoed a linux PDA is this true? I can't remember where I caught that bit...
5pm GMT so I assume that's 6pm European (ie. Dutch time). /. is released :-)
Come to think of it a really cool feature for Slashdot would be if it would automagically change the time displayed depending on your timezone specified in the prefs. Not just for time of posting for posts but EVERYTHING.
Maybe I'll have a bash at that myself if/when the source for
Too bad Linus got killed 0-3 in quake, but I liked the quote "If I lose, it's not because of the operating system"... of course he was also playing one of the creators of quake...
---------
Thus Spake Dave
Meine Hühner lachen Nicht!
I must have missed something... It looked cool, but what was with the smoking laptop? Were they saying that a DVD will catch it on fire or something?
---------
Thus Spake Dave
Meine Hühner lachen Nicht!
I planned my whole day to arrange to have my lunch hour right now, just to watch it ... then I see it posted here and there goes all hope. Those of us who really looked forward to it have to stand in line behind those who are just bored and want to see what everyone's talking about.
.. might as well spend my lunch putting more server racks together ...
Oh well
Anybody has an idea of how flexible the translation phase is? Say, could it be reprogramed to interpret PPC machine code. Do you think it could do java bytecode? Maybe Transmeta can re-microcode it to do it easily. I'm not sure which answer what answer I want to get. Having it too flexible basicaly means it is a general purpose processor, and as such it would really be any different than using Java's Hotspot.
-
This post was compiled with `% gec -O`. email me if you need the sources
Hardware is rally progressing, progressing to the point of superiority over humans.
Yet, we do not really see this because of lack of utilizing software such as AI.
Luckily The Great AIP (Artificial Intelligence Project) has started, otherwise there would not be much going.
One thing about VLIW is it is different on both chips - the 400mhz and the 700mhz. It sorta points out that a cpu core instruction set does not matter anymore. As long as you have a good software morphing program, you can actually design a special instruction set that tailored to your specific needs, like just playing dvd, and still be compartible to any platform using software morphing technique. Right now transmeta has coded the morphing program for x86 compartibility only, which is the largest sector of the mobile computing market. That's another reason why they patented the software morphing technique and not disclosing anything about the VLIW
Apparantly this is a line of processors that they are introducing. They are starting out with two. The first one runs at 400 mhz using less than one Watt of power and is targeted for web appliances. The second one is for notebooks and runs at 700 mhz and also uses less than one Watt of power. He said (not sure of his name) it will be targeted for the Windows operating system.
...../......
Wow, it's the big day. Does anybody have any idea what it's going to be?
And at what time is it in the Dutch local time?
This is why it's important to have a "throw away" e-mail address to hand out when sites require registration. In case you're wondering: no, the chat didn't work either.
Most of them can be updated, but I wouldn't suggest it for the Star Wars dispensers. Apparently, Lucas won't open source the drivers so performance is dog slow on all but the Darth Vader chrome dispenser, which isn't as fast as it used to be but because of it's processing power it is still useable...
My other
OPEN SOURCE GEEKS MUST BE HOWLING
That is, if they really believe in their credo...
The PTO thinks so, as they've granted Transmeta a patent on it. Of course, nobody ever accused the PTO of being on-target when it came to high-tech patents.
Yeah a creator of Quake Windows nerd. What chance did this nerd who helped create Quake have against Linus(pretty good actually).
Yeah a creator of Quake Windows nerd. What chance did this nerd who helped create Quake have against Linus(pretty good actually).
Linus just got himself fragged while running Linux on a Crusoe CPU. He was playing Dave (didn't catch his last name) from ID. Dave had a P3 667 and Windows.
Thanks, we got in using windows media player. You can try the same.
Sorry, but we can't get a connection to the ZDTV stream for the employees because it's maxed out. Can someone share an office with a buddy? This is not a hoax. If you need confirmation try ddunn@transmeta.com
At Transmeta we believe in giving at least some information out periodically. Therefore we have decided to release information about our new 'crusoe' processor. We actually just chose a random name. It has nothing at all to do with the processor's functionality/usability. Thank you for your time.
-Elendale (You know its going to happen!)IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
is the new chip gonna especially be very good for Squeak then?
The prototype portables are mostly "slate" designs -- you've probably seen 'em before elsewhere.
. . . but I think I'm gonna have to buy a new mobile computing system pretty soon . . .
I have no
I want my Squeak running on Crusoe with morphic!!!
He got fragged three times by a windows nerd.
So far that is the gist of what they are saying.
I haven't heard any hard tech stuff... like how it benchmarks...
I do like the "PADD" that they've been showing off with "Mobile Linux"...
Mind you this is the "Overview presentation"...
BlackNova Traders
Variable voltage and frequency on the chip to extend battery life.
:)
This is a very cool thing. Litteraly!
NB: Cooler running means longer chip-life too...
BlackNova Traders
I wonder what impact this will have on the linux/OS community vs. Propriety programs. ADM and intel should take a hit.
---Tuvack#1!!!
If Crusoe is completely x86 compatible and it's geared toward mobile applications, then one consequence (and a conclusion of Linus's involvement) would be that Linux will become the OS of choice for mobile devices, and more importantly, probably in many more embedded applications as well. Linux can become what Java originally wanted to have been.
The mobile factor will make it truly appealing to choose a chip other than Intel, breaking that half of the Wintel grip. Of course, Linux is already breaking the other half.
So in short, Linus is the man who can be credited to the eventual liberation of the world from Wintel domination.
I think that maybe a Transmeta chip-native version of Linux will be available soon too! I wonder if they'll have something for Java support...
Fun facts about ZDTV's live coverage of the Transmeta "Crusoe":
The Real Video stream (the only video accessible to Linux users) was full before the conference even started. This only highlights Real's shooting itself in the foot, by charging per-stream licenses.
The (Real) radio stream is designed as a plugin; in order to listen you would have to view the source of the plugin page to find the URL. Considering Linux users were the most involved in Transmeta speculation, what were they thinking?!
The event was not covered live on the actual ZDTV cable TV station. It was speculated that ZDTV may not actually have the capability to do a live video remote!
I don't know about you, but I wanted to see the performance of the Crusoe running Quake, and the 28k and 56k WMF streams (which I had to watch on my roomates windows box) didn't quite cut it.
Perl is the APL of the 90s. Ouch! And I debug APL financial models built by morons who could program themselves out of a paper bag when I'm not reading /. I guess I shouldn't finish reading the Camel book.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
It's often referred to as "reconfigurable computing"
After all, it sure would be neat to run Linux on a VLIW 128 bit CPU, wouldn't it?
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
You know, that's a good point I hadn't thought of quite yet. They could be doing another swing to throw people off.
Mighty observent, has me thinking..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Will the idiot who marked my post "Off Topic" kindly reply to this and explain just -how- a post about the Transmeta Webcast, and the station it's on, can possibly be off-topic to a thread concerned with the Transmeta Webcast and the station it's on.
Having seen several "moderator wars" on a number of my posts, where rival factions mark them up and down like a bloody yo-yo, I would like to make it very clear that I have had enough. The moderator system isn't about whether you "agree" with the post or not, whether you like the poster or not, or whether the sky is blue or not. If you're not willing to read the guidelines, you can B*gger Off and screw up some other guy's news service.
If my karma is that much higher than yours, that your ego is getting bruised, try posting stuff that people would find interesting or useful. Not to scrounge karma, but because it's actually -enjoyable- to post stuff that's interesting or useful. If you're unwilling to bother, don't hastle others. There are only so many hours in a day. If you'd rather troll through moderation than discuss something, why not go outside? Have a hamburger. Go walk round a park. Surely, there are plenty of things you can do, besides marking VERY relevent posts (humerous or otherwise) as "off-topic", for no purpose but to harass others.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You're not missing anything. Both chips are x86-compatible (in that the binary-to-binary translation software turns x86 code into the native code for the chip on which it's running, and runs it), and can run any x86 OS (assuming the OS can handle the rest of the system into which it's put, that is). The slower one could run Windows (or BeOS, or *BSD, or Solaris, or...), and the faster one could run Linux (or BeOS, or *BSD, or Solaris, or...).
As far as I can tell, there's no such thing. The chips' hardware doesn't appear to be reconfigurable; they have fixed VLIW instruction sets.
The chips will run, at the lowest level, software that takes code for an instruction set such as x86, and translate it to the native fixed instruction set for the chip on which it's running.
It's more like changeable microcode than like FPGA-style changeable hardware, but microcode is generally used to interpret an instruction set, rather than to translate it to a native instruction set not interpreted by microcode (no, the System/38 and AS/400 aren't an exception; the vertical "microcode" was just software, called "microcode" for legal reasons, as per Frank Soltis' Inside the AS/400 book).
sdf
**>>BELCH
The chip may be going at 700 MHz, but it is working in an emulated instruction set. So what speed CPU is that equivalent to in a best case, worst case, and some sort of average case?
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Code Morphing: Translates x86 instructions recieved to Crusoe VLIW, caches translations to reduce translation overhead, and has code optimizer.
LongRun: Adjusts megahertz to save power when full speed of processor isn't needed for current task.
Performance Benchmarks
1) 700 megahertz: Similar to P3-500 for far less power...
Jeez, if those Techweb numbers are correct (4 watts consumption equals 8 hours battery life, DVD-playing only uses 1-3 watts, email is 10 to 20 milliwatts), then we're looking at a scenario where you leave your laptop on 24/7, recharge it overnight, and go all day long without ever shutting it off.
Take it everywhere, always on. Shut the screen off to save power.
Jeezus.
Combine this with wireless networking. Make it wearable. Recharge while I sleep. Wow.
Why is it that everyone is jumping on this swirling logo bandwagon? Debian, Dreamcast, now Crusoe? Not that I don't like it or anything, but how many swirling logos can there be?
Maybe all their orginality went into chip design and they were tapped out when it came time to make a logo? =)
That's sort of the point of it. These need not be x86, and in the case of Crusoe they're not. But there MUST necessarily be native instructions on this chip. It is these instructions that the x86 instructions (mapping in software) are morphed into.
I don't know the details about Crusoe's architecture, but in a general sense what you're saying isn't right.
In microprocessors, the instruction set is implemented on the chip in a kind of firmware called "microcode". Directly underneath the microcode is just bazillions of logic gates, which possess no instruction set other than "gimme a 1" and "gimme a 0".
So the microcode provides an interface between the software instructions arriving at the chip's pins as a set of electrical voltages, and the underlying low-level hardware.
It sounds to me as if what Transmeta have done (and shoot me down if I'm wrong) is to replace the upper layer of the static firmware with dynamic software which can be reprogrammed on the fly. Whether or not the chip can meaningfully be termed as having an "instruction" set depends on how much is still implemented in firmware.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Despite the name, RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) doesn't actually just refer to the number of instructions implemented. It also implies a certain class of chip architecture comprising, for example, orthogonal instruction set. AFAIK, Crusoe has no instruction set at all in the traditional sense.
As to other RISC features such as superscalar architecture, multiple execution units with pipelining etc which have recently also been incorporated in modern CISC designs such as the latest Intel processors...I don't know if Crusoe has these but it ought to otherwise I don't think it could compete in performance terms.
Overall, Crusoe's architecture is radically different from both CISC and RISC. It really deserves a new category of its own.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Download RealPlayer G2 Alpha (for Linux)
Download the Windows Media Player
Well, whatever it is they are doing, I guess it's not anything that Mac users would be interested in....
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
I couldn't see it, so i listened in on ZD Radio, but now it's 1 and Real Player says there's a problem with Net conjestion.... Thanks guys.
Anyways. Have they actually built any, or is all their information based on software simulations? Granted, the simulations can be pretty accurate, but then Intel thought that Merced was going to perform a lot better than it did when it reached silicon.
Listening to them describe videotaped presentations, though, doesn't sound very exciting. I wish they had a Crusoe motherboard/chip vs. P3, so it would be more first hand... After all - Microsoft has taught us not to trust video tapes any more....
Hold on a sec...
Now, I didn't see the announcement, but I know for a fact that a processor MUST have instructions. That's sort of the point of it. These need not be x86, and in the case of Crusoe they're not. But there MUST necessarily be native instructions on this chip. It is these instructions that the x86 instructions (mapping in software) are morphed into.
These instructions on the Crusoe, are in almost all certainty RISC rather than CISC, since it's easier (drawing on intuition) to decompose CISC instructions into sequences of RISC instructions.
It actually makes a lot of sense. You have a lookup of CISC instructions for a particular architecture (x86 to start) and their corresponding RISC (native) operation sequence. It's surely more complex than this but: when executing x86 code, you encounter some instruction, you look up the corresponding native sequence and execute it.
Anyhoo, while Crusoe is not 'just a RISC chip', it's native instruction set must be simpler than x86 CISC, since you can't reasonably go in the opposite direction. The magic of this chip is that it seems to do runtime optimization of instructions... And executing only what it needs to??? Freaky!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Check CNN, they are doing a live broadcast in real format as well.
Uhh... MSNBC?
By the way, I think I've figured out the AOL/Time thing: Steve Case just wants to make himself Man of the Year.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
Exciting, I think they will tentatively be bringing out their product and it seems pretty much in a closed-shop environment. In other words you won't be able to buy Crusoe chips and motherboards. I get the feeling however that this will change, probably more likely when (if) they achieve a good market share.
$ prices seemed pretty good, the the smaller chip to be under $100 and the larger chip to be under $200.
I don't think I've been so excited since I saw the Apple ][ for the first time!!
The Real G2 servers appear to be full to capacity now, so if you're trying to get the webcast on a Linux box I'm afraid you're probably going to be out of luck.
The "Windows Media" still appears to be accepting connection (at least it was when I connected 10 minutes ago).
Here's waiting... 13 minutes to go....
MHz Power
500 15.8
550 17.4
600 19.6
650 21.2
700 22.9 -- That means Crusoe is over 23 times cooler and has 23 times longer battery life!
750 24.5
OK, I actually posted the following somewhere else first. But it's all good information and I figured I could get some Karma by posting it here. So sue me.
.18 micron process. They also mentioned that all Transmeta chips will be sold by Transmeta, so they evidently don't
Well, technical difficulties caused me to miss the technical questions, but I'll give you what I got (which is a lot).
Let's start at the very beginnng...
Transmeta was founded in 1995 in response to problems they perceived in the microprocessor industry. Namely that processors have gotten so complex they take
5 years or more to develop, require teams of hundreds of people, and contain millions of transistors which cause them to run extremely hot an consume large
amounts of power. They realized that a lot of these problems could be solved with new processor architectures, but then you lose the compatability which is so
important.
So the two big problems are compatability and complexity.
Transmeta's idea was software based microprocessor, in which software itself is an integral part of the processor. They criticized semiconductor companies for
trying to do everything with more transistors. The benefits of this approach include simplier hardware, which makes less expensive and less power-producing
products. By using software to handle some of the functions normally done in hardware they don't need as many transistors.
The benefits of software are not limited to reduced complexity, however. They later discussed their "Smart microprocessor" technology in which the software
could optimize certain things about your programs as they were run. Basically, the more you used it the better it ran.
The essential thing which makes the Crusoe processors work is their "Code Morphing" software. This software is the only thing that is ever compiled for the
Crusoe's VLIW instruction set. Everything else is in whatever instruction set it happens to be running.
Here is a summary of the "Code Morphing" software.
Morphs x86 into VLIW
128 bit wide instructions
3/4 of functionality implemented in software
Completely invisible dynamic translation
Processor can learn about application program
Very simple and very fast hardware chip
Reduction in number of logic transistors
Their goal is a single solution with extremley low power, x86 compatability, and competitive performance.
There were two processor shown today, the TM3120 and the TM5400. As I mentioned in the previous post, the TM3120 is aimed more at small "Internet
appliances" while the TM5400 is aimed at the more traditional laptop market, although both are completely x86 compatable. Both feature an integrated north
bridge and the TM5400 has DDR memory support. The TM3120 really seems to be being paired with a slightly modified version of Linux they are calling Mobile
Linux. Mobile Linux will be able to fit into ROM modules so these small webpads, etc. do not have to have hard drives and it will include all the basic applications
that one would expect from such a device. It sounds to me like some very interesting products could be made out of this. The TM5400 is aimed at more
conventional laptops (In the entire program they never once mentioned desktops. They are really targetting the mobile market.) and will feature better
performance, but it will still dissipate only 1 Watt of power. Expect traditional windows based machines using these processors, although I certainly wouldn't
mind a good Linux laptop.
There was a lot of marketing speech in the whole presentation, which I will try to filter out. Basically they went on (and on) about how they are the only
semiconductor company that is really designing exclusively for the mobile market. They pointed out how previous mobile processors are just modified versions of
desktop ones, but their processors are different. They compared current notebooks to the first generation cell-phones: bulky, heavy, and impractical. They say
mobile computing is currently hampered by the form factors used.
They went on to discuss compatability. Crusoe processors will be completely compatable with normal x86 instructions as well as MMX. There currently is no
support for either SSE or 3DNow!, although it might be added in the future. They pointed out that where current internet devices have the most difficulty is with
plugins. Plugins are basically small, x86 compatable programs that are downloaded, and most internet devices just aren't x86 compatable. The Crusoe, being x86
compatable, will have no difficulty at all handling plugins.
Next on the agenda was battery life and weight. These are very important things for mobile computing and is the one area where current mobile processors have
the most difficulty. This area really impressed me (as I'm sure it was supposed to). The fact that the Crusoe dissipates only 1 Watt while in operation is just the
beginning. It also features a special sleep mode that will allow it to dissipate less than 20 milliwatts. Also, the smaller number of transistors when compared to
most processors means that the Crusoe generates less heat and doesn't need a fan, resulting in less noise made and less power consumed. But the really cool
part is their "LongRun" technology.
"LongRun" ties in with the "Code Morphing" software and will manage your mhz and voltage on the fly. It actually determines how much processing power your
applications require and throttles the processor back to exactly that level while you run them. It happens instantaneously whenever you start or stop an
application and there is absolutely nothing the user has to do to take advantage of this technology. This simply wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for the software
nature of the Crusoe processor. They call it, "performance on demand".
They also talked about the company, but I'm more interested in the technical stuff (as I'm sure you are), so I'll make it breif. They have 200 employees worldwide,
including Japan and Taiwan because that is where a lot of the manufacturing happens. They were very proud of their design teams, especially the way the
software guys and the hardware guys worked together in a way that just doesn't normally happen. They talked about some of their partners, confirming that IBM
will be manufacturing their chips using their
have the same kind of crappy deal Cyrix got. In fact, they said that IBM had an entire team in Vermont dedicated to nothing else besides supporting the Crusoe.
One of the (many) interesting things about Transmeta is that they are not simply a chip company. They designed their own BIOS, they designed a lot of the apps
for Mobile Linux (especially the power management stuff), and although they never actually confirmed it (at least if they did, I missed it), I'm pretty sure they
designed their own chipset, seeing how they have a custom BIOS and a processor with and integrated north bridge. They also designed a lot of the prototypes for
various internet appliances which could be picked up by OEMs. Basically, they are committed to delivering an entire platform, not just a processor. Maybe AMD
could learn a thing or two from these people.
On to some of the specifics about the processors. They don't have any sort of registry renamers or reorder buffers in hardware, it's all done in the software. They
actually used a very modest VLIW engine. (Although one of the really interesting things they mentioned is that their different processors don't have to use the
same instruction set. In fact, the TM3120 and the TM5400 have slightly different instruction sets optimized for different tasks. This has a lot of potential for
future scalability.) They weren't very clear about this point, but they seemed to imply that their software could actually theoretically be ported to other
architectures, although with very poor performance because the architectures would not be optimized for using software in that way. But the point was that it's
the combination of software and hardware that makes the Crusoe special. They are really designed to work together. Many things are implemented in software to
save on hardware, and other aspects of the hardware make it well optimized for using the software in this way.
There are no x86 decoders in hardware at all. The x86 instructions reach the software where they are decoded, translated, and stored in a special memory area
that essentiall caches translated programs for future reference. This means that the processor does not have to be constantly translating the same instructions
again and again, although it will only cache the part of whatever programs you are running that you are currently using.
The Code Morphing software goes beyond simple translation, however. There is a "back end" that can actually learn about and optimize your programs as they are
run, actually justifying the marketing term "smart processor". The Code Morphing only takes time to optimize the most commonly used parts of your programs. In
one example they gave, it was possible to take 20 x86 instructions and do the same thing with only 10 VLIW instructions. Making the programs smaller in this
way can also help lower the power consumption.
They went on to discuss different benchmarks. This part reeked of marketing and I think they tried to cover up some things, but I'll tell you what I can. Basically,
they criticized current benchmarks for laptops for not taking into account the amount of power consumed in going through the benchmark. I suppose there is some
truth to this claim, but that doesn't justify what they did. They actually created a benchmarking program that (somehow, we don't know the actual formula used)
actually integrates power usage into the score. That's right, there isn't a seperate performance score and power usage score, they are part of the same number.
I'm sure this is great for a company advertising a really low power usage processor, but does it make sense. To add to the complexity, the entire benchmark was
sort of calibrated around a reference system. They said the system was a P3 500, although they didn't mention anything else about it. The reference system is
given a score of 10 and everything else was compared to that. Basically, the Crusoe scored in the 30-40 range, which might be really impressive if I knew what in
the hell that score actually meant. Oh well.
They did mention some things about real-world performance, although no other benchmarks were given. They said that DVD decoding and mp3 playing should
perform comparably to other x86 processors, although I don't know whether that is compared to the processors out now, the processors that will be out when the
Crusoe is release, at the same mhz, or what. So I don't know exactly what this all means. They also said that other applications should perform at 80-90% of
other processors, and in this case I have two "others" I don't know what they mean. Later on in the Q&A they said that most business apps should perform
slightly better. Better than what? Either they just weren't clear or they're trying to hide something. Performance might not be the Crusoe's strongpoint, although
frankly I can live with that if the claims about battery life are true.
The next part of the program was very amusing. We all got to watch Linus Torvalds play against Dave Taylor (one of the original Quake designers and also a
Transmeta employee) in a game of Quake (running on TM5400s of course), although they didn't say what version. Linus basically got his ##### kicked. That's
about all there is to say about that part.
There was a lot of stuff about business forcasts and the like after that. They looked at the laptop market and pointed out that the fastest growing segment of that
market is in the thin and lightweight models pioneered by Sony's VAIO. Obviously if the claims are true, Crusoe is perfect for that market. I wonder if Sony will
make a VAIO based on the Crusoe? They also talked about Mobile Linux and how it will be able to fit into ROM for internet appliances. They even went on to talk
about how there might eventually be a palm-sized device based on the Crusoe. Obviously, that would be just impossible with any other x86 compatable processor.
One story I would like to mention deals with the software nature of the Crusoe. They talked about a situation in which some guy in Japan came across a bug in an
early version of their product. Instead of having to fix the design in hardware and fab a new sample, which could take months, they fixed it in software and sent a
fix to the guy over the internet. Everything was working fine in under a week. The Software-upgradability of the Crusoe really has some interesting applications.
Finally, some mention of prices. They said the TM5400 would be in the $119-321 range and that the TM3120 would be in the $65-89 range. PCs based on them
could be around $1200. They said that internet appliances based on the TM3120 could be anywhere from $500 to $1000, as there is a lot of room for variation in
their configurations. No specific products have been announced yet, they are leaving that up to the individual OEMs. They did say that a lot of companies are
interested in their technology, and I don't blame them.
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
Or how to shoot your karma to the stars.
There should be more Transmeta announcements
(But thanks from all those that can't see it directly nor hear it
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
They just announced they have a partnership with IBM, and a dedicated chip factory from IBM in Vermont. Also, a ton of investors, and just now showing a "web pad" running Linux... Woohoo!!
That's Ditzel, Transmeta's CEO.
BTW: 400 MHz for Linux and 700 MHz for Windows.. LOL. But 1W/chip at 700 MHz with 400kB cache...that's impressive.
...they're just not optimized for it (I am speaking, of course, about emulating an instruction set).
I can't wait until we get real software chips: imagine a grid of tiny computational elements that can be set to perform one of several functions (like, xor east and west inputs and output to north, inverted to south). There are some really cool ideas for this out there, like making the data and configuration lines the same, so you have to start programs at the edge and make them worm their way inwards.
Imagine being able to rewire all the transistors in a modern chip into parallel vector crunchers for graphics apps! Even if you wasted 90% of the transistors in switching, you'd still probably have 20 to 100 times faster calculations.
This sure is a step in the right direction, though. The big problem with current designs is that only one tiny portion of the chip is working at any one time. The hardware needs to be split up and made more versatile so more stuff can be run in parallel.
Beautiful, isn't it? It almost makes me cry...
:-)
Thimo
--
Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux!
~~
I get it... the first Q&A was to weed out the stupid people...
The Engineering Q&A is MUCH better...
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
They just said that after the show, they will be demoing a processor running several instruction sets at the same time, including java bytecode.
It's not "just and x86 processor." That was, understandably, their first target.
Phew! 10mw on standby! The 667MHZ chip runs faster than a P-III 500 MHz, and uses less power playing DVD than a PIII does idling.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Though it may be /.ed as I can't load it at the moment.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Though it may be /.ed as I can't load it at the moment.
/dev/ developer's area, a press page, an about Tranmeta page, a Crusoe page, and a Going Mobile page.
Wait, I got through. The logo for Transmeta is downward pointing teal triangle with a wavy line crossing it.
they have a
Still to loaded to actually vist these paghes though.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Techweb transcribed the pricing a little more precisely than I:
The 500- and 700-MHz TM5400 versions will list for $119 and $329, respectively. The 333- and 400-MHz TM3120 devices will list for $65 and $89, respectively.
--LP
one by cnet, pretty thorough, and
one by techweb with more details than the other articles, and
one from Infoworld
--LP
One thing to remember - to be a success you have to conform to the biggest market - currently that X86.
From the sounds of this chip they can do whatever they want with this chip. First they will get the market with it, then they will change it to whats best.
Their TMS4000. 700MHz. ONE WATT. About a quarter of the transistors/logic gates of a P3.
For those not watching, Crusoe processors are long-word processing systems that load the whole of various instruction sets (x86, etc.) in software. Designed with mobility foremost, leading to low power and low heat output, targeted towards clients rather than server platforms.
More interesting is the idea (mentioned briefly by the monkey on stage) of Crusoe's software adjusting its performance and configuration to software. I drooool.
And he who controls the spice controls the universe.
"And how can this be? For he is the
Clearly the rumour that this is a chip for handheld devices is a well-founded one. "Crusoe: We rethought the microprocessor to create a whole new world of mobility."
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Actually, mint flavor Pez isn't new. Peppermint was the original flavor of pez when they first came out as a replacement for smokers. The original dispensers didn't have cartoon heads, they looked like a cigarette lighter.
As for the electric dispensers, I had a circular one that I bought at K-mart, but it kept jamming and then it just quit working after about a week. We need Tux Pez dispensers.
Sounds like the Instruction Set has been greatly Reduced. That qualifies as RISC in my book =)
Religion is the opium of the people. Evolution is the opium of scientists.
A uhm..color stream that doesn't use the plugin is posted at ZDNet's site (see the link in the main story). I have a 34kbps stream that looks like an "Off-the-air" that you'd get from regular broadcast TV. Woo!
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
It's a nice informal font (that's why we are giving it away), but if they'd asked me I wouldn't have used it for a corporate logo.
-Martin
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android
Two chips were shown, a 400 MHz chip for internet appliancies and a 700 MHz for ultralight laptops. Using "LongRun" power management the chips use as little as 1 watt of power during average use. A demo showed a 667 MHz chip drawing about 2 watts to play a DVD movie, while an Pentium III 500 used 7 watts. A real world system's supposed to have about twice the battery life of an equivalent Intel-based system. The 667 MHz chip performs like a PIII 500, and the translating software is still being tweaked.
Transmeta will not release the nativer architecture of the chips. Thanks to the efficent emulation software, they can give good x86 performance and still change the silicon without worrying about backwards compatability. The two chips announced have partially different ISAs, but both appear identical to a Pentium to applications.
There's real functioning silicion, shown running both Windows and Linux. IBM will provide semiconductor tech and fabs when manufacturing starts in mid-year.
Transmeta has developed a special "Mobile Linux OS", a mini-distro for diskless handhelds and the like. (note: the OS runs in x86 emulation, not natively) The power management enhancements made to Linux will be merged into future kernel releases.
Give Transmeta a chance..It makes complete sense for them to focus on the x86 compatibility of the chip. If they started talking too much about the software reprogramming of the CPU it would just confuse their launch message, which is all about the benjamins, not the geek-factor of the technology.
So someone just asked Linus why he chose transmeta, and what he was thinking before he accepted.
Linus talked about how TM flew him out from Finland, because he had to sign the NDA before they would tell him anything. So then he had a one day discussion of what TM was working on, and then he went back to his hotel room and thought "what a bunch of crazy guys".
He said that he was looking at a job which would offer him something fun, a chance to work on a cool new technology.
Then a journalist asked him what job offers he turned down, and he repeated his common line about getting lots of offers from Linux companies, and how he really didn't want to polarize the community towards one 'official' linux to the detriment of others. So he chose a company that offered him a chance to work on a fun project that included linux but wasn't a distribution.
You can generally get Real Player to work fine through a firewall - set it to "use HTTP only" in Options/Preferences/Transport/RTSP Settings. This way, if you can browse, you can use RealAudio. Hope this helps - cheers
It struck me as odd that Ditzel claims Crusoe is the first processor to make use of a software solution. It may be the first designed to do this from the ground up, but the code morphing idea is not really all that new.
The IBM S/390 has the ability to completely recode the instruction set through microcode. The Alpha has PAL code for VAX compataility. FX!32 provide x86 compatability and "learns" about the program through profiling and reoptimization. Dynamo is HP's answer to FX!32, providing similar functionality to PA-RISC and probably IA32. While none of these are quite exactly like Crusoe, it's the same general idea.
Dynamic recompilation research has been going on for a while. Translating JVM's are only the most recent example. In fact Transmeta hired some big names in this area, which of course makes a lot of sense.
We've been kicking around the idea of self-optimizing computers for a while now. The idea being basically what Crusoe does - examine the software running and adjust accordingly. Now if a couple of inexperienced graduate students can come up with this idea after reading a few papers, it can't be all that revolutionary. :)
What I did like was the fact that someone finally publicly (i.e. through marketing) expressed the value of being able to change the underlying native instruction set. The question of whether the native ISA would be exposed was asked. The answer was no. This is a good thing, as it frees the hardware designers from having to carry around a bunch of compatability cruft. It's almost a necessary thing when your core is native VLIW.
I found it humorous that the bigwigs at Transmeta feel that Linus is the guy you want on a project like this. I figured you'd want someone with expertise in computer architecture and compilers. Yeah, I know it was a throwaway line, but we had a bit of a chuckle. I'm sure Linus us doing a great job. :)
As for the power consumption, it's not all that spectacular when you consider that the StrongARM has been sub-Watt for some time now. I'm not sure how many hardware power tricks were pulled with Crusoe, but the power demo was very entertaining. In any event, no one has been able to run x86 at a Watt, so that is certainly worth some praise. I know that Intel is very, very concerned about power (from a friend I have there). This could make them a bit nervous. I'm interested to see if they have anything that can compete.
But my big question concerns the web pad. First of all, that screen is tiny! No wonder it's low power! Aren't the disk and screen the largest consumers of battery power? It doesn't seem like Transmeta does anything about that. Hopefully the unnammed (and apparently unsigned) OEM's can solve that problem.
Even ignoring the screen/disk problem, why is Linux "the obvious choice" for a ROM-based OS in a web pad? If their main goal is a "fully internet compatable" low-power mobile device, it seems as though they've shot themselves in the foot by relying on an OS that has sub-average plugin support at best. They kept touting how the x86 compatability provides full support for plugins, but the OS question was completely ignored. What's the answer? It doesn't seem fully internet compatible to me.
--
Specs:
Chip 1
700mhz
400k cache
1w power use (yes, *1* watt)
100% x86 compatible
chip 2
400mhz
100k cache
1w power use
Yes this is my real UID. No, it was not bought from EBay.
Do they mean software based in the same way that the 6800 (not 68000) was software based - an onboard ROM (well, RAM in transmetas case) that contains instructions on how to control the hardware part of the chip?
/me breathes low... wow!
No. The software that runs natively on the VLIW core does all the translation, optimization and such.
But oh my, what optimization! They're talking about ass-end compiler optimizations.. very 'big' algorithms that won't fit on silicon.
I wonder if you could buy the code optimizer and have it spit back hyper-optimized x86. You know, the code runs and self-profiles, rewrites and then retranslates to x86.
I also have to wonder how scared Intel and AMD are right now. This puppy runs COLD, FAST and is SMALL and CHEAP to build. Plus it is self-optimizing and 100% x86-compatible. I think Intel et al just lost their mobile market.
I was particularly impressed with the Longrun technology. If those were actual true power consumption graphs...
For those impatient, don't worry! Using the latest bzip2 compression software, I have squashed a time machine into this box: [#]. Just extract, expand and go forward one hour. If you get back, could you post the summary here?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
As art imitates life, life imitates art. We're watching what may very well be the most interestingly designed media campaign of the last few years--certainly the most intentionally mysterious, curiously designed, creatively leaked(certainly the most...effectively subversive use of the US Patent Office) company the computer industry has ever seen.
Twenty minutes, and the gloves come off. They've had years to prepare for this; now we get to see if the computer industry gets its first proper launch.
No more delays. No more promises. The most carefully marketed R&D house in Silicon Valley is about to open their doors--it'll be intriguing to see if they're as skillful on the open scene, under attack by the whispering galleries of competitors.
Hiring Linus was genius--you couldn't buy a more devoted audience.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
1) 700 megahertz x86-compatible 1 watt dissipation 400+kb cache, targeted at Windows notebooks
2) 400 hegahertz x86-compatible 1 watt dissipation 100kb+ cach, targeted at Linux devices
No actual performance figures, at least yet...
Linus is closet q player..
Dave taylor runs quake on Windows, Linus on Linux..
667 TM 5400...
Makes a joke that if he loses its not the OS...
Linus bites it..
Runs really GOOD!! and FAST!
Linus bites it again.
Dave starts making fun of Linus !!
Bites it again..
Jim Chapman.. Marketing.
Intel/Cyrix..
left cyrix in 1996
2 lines
Emerging internet appliance.
existing mobile market.
mobile pc's focus on sub 4lb machine.
2 spindle hdd, dvd/cdrom
lightweight
1 spindle > 3lb's
fastest growing segment 80/90% dev on type product..
user lightweight/better battery
3lb single spindle == viao short battery life.
highest quality entern...
longest battery life in apps..
4x/5x's less battery usage.
less thermal solution reduces weight and cost.
dvd machines in slim form uses no more then 2hours in dvd mode..
mobile 17% crusoe to improve batter, weight, preformance.. new thinner form factors...
in the hands of the leading mobile makers in mid year..
Mobile inet device.
market neeeds standard..
uses linux as logicla chouce.
low power
x86 compat..
between 500 - 1000 dollars.
no way to get low power before crusoe.
can get linux in rom.
Transmeta:
End product enhancing
end user considerate
industry growth
original r&d
add value throught software
hardware optimized.
two memory controllers.
--- i can stop this since the transcript is in #transmeta..
' god damn this is one wacky game show ' ~ jay in mallrats
this sounds like a great product and all, but I had to laugh at the fact that they had called in Lexicon to name it. Crusoe - what a brilliant associaton! It conjures up the image of a hungry, lonely semi-naked guy wandering around desperate for someone else to talk to, yet scared of them because they're all savages, cowering in fear when he sees evidence of other humans, a reluctant fugitive isolated on an island against his will, talking to himself. Hope they didn't pay Lexicon too much!
...may I suggest irc.slashnet.org, #slashdot. See you there,
Long Battery Life
Low Weight and new Form Factors
Rid of noisy fans
That is exactly right. With all of the faux battles between chip manufacturers and video card makers resulting in 15% clock rate improvements here and there, the irrelevancy of it all is often difficult to see. An 800 MHz Athlon with some nutty next gen 3DFX chipset is completely pointless when what people really want are low power consumption devices that don't fit the clunky desktop model.
There have been a number of people focusing on developing low power CPUs that do what people want, but they've been mostly ignored because web geeks like to hear about overclocked processors that need to be dunked in liquid nitrogen. Crusoe could potentially take over the world, as the big PC chipmakers aren't even in the same universe.
they're putting the Linux OS in ROM for some devices
the form factor of a "vaio-like" device with Crusoe is smaller than previous existing models with comparable compute power; the prototype they show seems to be about 7"x5"x.75", although this is a very rough, rough eyeball.
some talk about using this as a wireless Internet client; per month pricing totally unclear so far
--LP
the high-end chip would sell for $1XX- $32X dollars, while the low-end chip would sell in
the $60ish to mid-hundreds range.
mobile crusoe PCs expected to sell around $1200-2500
wireless internet PCs pricing expected to work somewhat like cellphones, with business models TBD.
--LP
I will probably miss out on this is there a way to get a transcript or a video tape?
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
As pointed out by an AC, paste the following into the "Open Location...":
e n.rpm
http://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/static/radio/ram/list
Not sure if this is the right stream or not though. But I'm getting audio...
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
Ditzel, since his days in academia, has been a champion of the philosophy that compilers and optimizers can make simple, less capable hardware outdo more powerful hardware. We'll see if this is so. (This approach didn't help Sun; it's unclear if it will help Transmeta.)
The biggest potential problem of the architecture, whose emphasis is on power savings, is choppy performance due to unexpected pauses for code translation and/or "shifting gears" from low power to high-performance modes. I don't know enough about the details yet to evaluate the impact of these issues. If I can actually test a machine with the chip in it I'll be able to say more.
--Brett Glass
Turns out that the Crusoe is an embedded processor that will be used in the next line of electric Pez dispensers. And yes, the OS is Linux and you can put your Pez dispensers in a Beowulf cluster, but be careful when you try and add a Pez dispenser full of that new mint flavor Pez because it uses a different networking protocol that throws the others off...
My other
End part I
so far he has showed two vers of Crusoe. One is a 400 MHZ version for handhelds and other smaller mobiles.
there is a 700Mhz version for Notebook size mobiles. All have X86 compatibility and only use 1 Watt of POWER!
more and more this product is becoming focused on the internet.
Crusoe supports:
1. Full PC Architecture
2. Runs all X86 Operating Systems
3. 100% X86 Application Compatiblity
4. Run WEB BROWSER & Plugins
Crusoe uses very little power. 20 miliwatts of power in STANDBY MODE.
Crusoe's low power offers what people want.
Long Battery Life
Low Weight and new Form Factors
Rid of noisy fans
Transmeta hired Marc Allen to help run Transmeta.
Now going over background of Transmeta...
' god damn this is one wacky game show ' ~ jay in mallrats
Here's a short summary of the first 30 minutes for people who couldn't stream it :
:)
:). Looks like a great CPU.
- Crusoe is, from what I understand, an extremely simple and compact RISC processor that supports x86 entirely through an integrated emulator. It is as fast as "traditional" processors, cheap to produce and extremely low power (1 W)
- There are two models right now : a 400mhz/~128kb cache for notebooks, and a 700mhz/~400kb cache for laptops.
- Several APM techniques, like a "deep sleep" mode
that means you'll almost never have to reboot your laptop. Cool
- They both run every x86 operating system -- emulation is complete.
- More processors are forthcoming! Looks like Transmeta is planning to take over the mobile market. "If it has a battery and a web browser, it's going to be built with Crusoe".
Well, it looks like their gamble paid off
Broccolist
So lessee....ZDNET is using Real to broadcast video and audio, and you need the G2 release. Okay...so I get G2 and install it. Still get those nice "you need a plugin" from ZDNET. The Linux version of G2 doesn't have plugin support!
How are we supposed to see/hear it? Anyone know a way of getting the stream without using the plugin?
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
For those who can't get the webcast, here's a quick summary of what I've seen sofar: The guy onscreen (don't know him, didn't catch the beginning) keeps promoting a 'software' solution for solving some cpu problems, including the ability to tune itself to the applications, for performance and power reasons. They also keep stressing low-power, and mobile applications Big announcement! The instruction set is entirely in software (his words) -- Yep boys and girls, we can run anyone's instructions -- VL instruction set, 128 bit instructions.... 3/4 functionality of the cpu is in software... more to come...
Yes this is my real UID. No, it was not bought from EBay.
(( Missed part of the webcast due to work ))
End part III, on to tech details
3120
Targeted for internet mobile device.
400Mhz, L1 Cache
Integrated NorthBridge.
5400
Runs Windows/Applications.
700 Mhz, L1 128k, l2 256k
DDR Memory Controller.
Morphs x86 into VLIW instru.
Registers and other X86 Tech is done in software.
Simple fast, low power processor..
code morphin'
Translates x86 pc apps to vliw instructions
Generates x86 to vliw, optimizes, puts in translation cache that is hidden and only the processor knows of it.
only what is used is translated, done on the fly.. keeps programs in translation cache to aid in morphing on the fly.
learn and optimize.
Analyzing the x86 app that is running and optimizes the top code.
register renaming, reordering.
software can optimize like in the compiler
20 X86 Instructions--> 10 vliw instructions
removes useless code to get better preformance and lower power.
benchmarked on a windowing environment.
shows video with fast windowing environment.. translation doesn't get in the way.
P3 Playing DVD
105.5 C
Crusoe Playing DVD with Translation.
48.2 C
Thermal solutions are draining the Mobile battery, and crusoe puts out less heat, less thermal solution == less battery..
LongRun Technology in Code Morphing adjusts power consumption to match needs of the application and uses the lowest power required.
700 Mhz at 1.6V bumps down the MHZ then the V's
Can make the analysis on a frame by frame basis ( example used is playing a DVD ).
700 Mhz uses 1.65V is 100% then the processor goes to 400 Mhz using 1.4 Vs then down to 333Mhz
at 1.2v. Thats only using 25% of the processor.
Introduced new Benchmark Methodolgy:
1. Benchmark on a real APPLICATION
2. Measure battery AFTER the app is run
3. Combine the two for the score.
Demo Crusoe on Linux with Linus.. be back in 30mins.
' god damn this is one wacky game show ' ~ jay in mallrats
Anyone else notice that? Their questions are all along the lines of "this must suck somehow, can you tell us how?"
The Slashdot/Red Herring/Etc type reporters are the only ones asking intelligent questions about the products!
"Hi, I'm a total bitch. I came in late and didn't really listen. This isn't really a new idea, is it? Isn't everyone doing this? Can you explain?"
Sheesh. Someone must be training those people to be clueless and annoying, unless they are actually clueless and annoying and just don't know any better.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I'm not one to make corrections, but with mistakes this fundamental, I feel that I have to or people will have the entirely wrong idea.
:)
The Crusoe processor is not a RISC processor; the presenter was involved in the development of the RISC processor ~1980. The Crusoe family (there are two being presented, with more to be announced) is a small processor that does not have any instructions on the chip itself; it has a software couterpart that translates standard x86 instruction calls to the chip itself. It is completely x86 compatable and the two that were demonstrated operate at 1 watt, making it ideal for mobile computing platforms. To summarize, Transmeta has created a brand new processor family that uses software to handle many of the functionality that is traditionally embedded on the CPU itself.
Oh, and the "marketing geek" is David Ditzel, CEO and president of Transmeta, one of the architects of the Sun SPARC microprocessor and longtime advocate of the RISC architecture; I highly recommend checking out some of the books and articles that he has written over the past 25 or so years working with microprocessors, as they are quite interesting. I will admit that he did abuse the "Internet" line a bit much, especially since he was introducing a bloody processor.
Deosyne