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Crusoe vs. Dell And Compaq
Boone^ writes "Yahoo! has an article from ZDNet News that details how Compaq and Dell are shying away from Crusoe notebooks 'for now.' " Basically it says that the performance isn't so hot, and consumers are gonna be burned by the hype of the first generation of Transmeta based laptops. But then again ... the battery life sure ain't a bad thing. Mentions that Hitachi notebooks might be shipping as early as October.
Update: 06/28 09:37 by CT : here's some pictures of transmeta laptops.
When the two biggest computer manufacturers hesitate in adopting something like this it adds validity to something that many of us have been suspecting for quite some time. Namely that Linus' attachment to the Linux & Open Source communities has hurt Transmeta's chances of being taken seriously by big business.
I'm not trying to start a flame war here, I just want to point out how the majority of people in the business community think. I spent three years working in purchasing for Gateway, and impression always takes precedence over reality. The impression most purchasing managers have of these communities is that of a bunch of bearded hippy hobbiests.
Those who actually decide what goes into the systems being sold are not the elite gurus who respect the GNU model or writings from ESR. They are business and marketing school graduates. I'm working towards my MBA, and the opinions I often hear floated around the lecture halls are not very kind.
Yes, this is the "image thing" again. Once again, please consider what I'm saying before you flame me!
The Open Source community needs to work on it's image. People who are wearing Birkenstocks and haven't shaved in years do NOT go over very well in the board room. The word "free" is anathema to someone who is in business to make money. A penguin doesn't instill confidence in most stock investors.
These issues have been brought up many times here before, and the poster is always ridiculed into silence, but I'm going to mention it again.
Linux needs a strong marketing presence funded by capital (not free time). This needs to be handled by a professional marketing agency (not hobbiests). We need to work on our image if we wish to succeed.
Frankly, it sounds like Dell and Compaq are playing it smart. Let the other companies see if there is a demand AND take the heat for the slow speed* and then come out with laptops in about 6 months.
Maybe Dell and Compaq have actually been watching the Sega vs. Nintendo saga (heheh "Sega Saga".. sorry) and have actually learned something from it, as opposed to, for example, Sega.
In my opinion, being first is only important if you aren't an established company and you really need to make your mark and get your name out there. Otherwise, you'll put out a product, it will get press like, "What a great idea!! Too bad it's slow and clunky and ugly", and six months later, megacorporation X will do it right.
In conclusion, the first person to put this out should be me. Personally. Mail venture capital to: P.O. Box 1784...
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Is there some reason that LEDs (now that white ones are available and not *that* expensive) couldn't be used instead of flourescent lamps as the backlight in notebooks? Perhaps the quality of the light isn't quite as nice, and it might take quite a few (expensive) white LEDs in the case, but I would think the increased battery life would be worth it quickly. So what I want ;) is a transmeta web pad with an adequately large (12.1 XGA) screen lit with LEDs and running for 9 hours at a stretch ... eh? eh? sw
"Hey Carlito, r'membah me? Benny Blanco from the Bronx!"
Why bother. We've already succeeded. Lack of interest from corporate America won't stop you or I from using Linux. Developers won't turn away from Linux in disgust when someone doesn't spend millions to advertise Linux in PC-Weekly.
Keep in mind that success isn't measured in dollars and cents, or percentage of market share.
Success is when somebody installs Linux and decides they like it.
700 MHz == 700 million cycles/second
But, an instruction can take more than one cycle to execute. It's difficult to predict exact amounts of instructions/second because of this. Soooo...your 7 million number was purely hypothetical, right?
Wherever there's a will, there's a motorway.
No, it's not irrelevant, but apparently some big OEM makers think that the Crusoes give away too much in performance to be worth the reduction in power -- especially compared to the mobile chips that Intel recently announced, which claim to bring the power consumption right down to the same level as the Crusoe while still giving good performance. (Note that a lot of people here questioned Intel's claims, but didn't do the same for Transmeta, even though all they had were claims as well.) Just like when the Crusoes were announced, most people around here bought into it hook, line, and sinker, with hardly any skepticism at all. Now that some of the big boys are showing their disappointment with the Crusoe, a lot of people here still refuse to believe it and suggest that they're all being paid off by Intel. Be honest now, do you really think Crusoe would have so many apologists if it weren't for the simple fact that Saint Linus works for them?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
After reading the article on ZDNet, I thought I might point out that the "truncated" lines you refer to are in fact headlines in the original article. Perhaps if you had had *your* coffee this morning, you'd have thought to look at the original article before picking nits. Just a thought. At any rate, trusting a news source whose name is "Yahoo" (as in "Some yahoo told me that Microsoft is filing a patent on binary notation.") seems to me kinda dumb.
...was a great kernel, I used it for years on my 486 with slackware. It's still on there but I don't use it any more.
.99.x series was usable.
The 1.x series was not as scary as some people think. Even the
Admittedly their model looks really really sweet, but if I can't get it, then who cares :(
e books/index.html
It says something about not selling their notebooks in the US market on their site.
http://w ww.hitachi.com/products/information/computing/not
Are they available from some place that imports foreign laptops?
I must be an 'e-tard'. 2.8.1 does seem to have the newer Sparc backend, in direct contrast to my statement above. The short test I ran to check I forgot to compile with optimization, so obviously I saw bogus info. Moderate away. :-P
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
In my department we have a stack of misguided individuals that use their laptops for everything. They seem to think that the mhz is all that is important as far as application speed goes. Have you ever seen someone useing a laptop to do 3d engineering design? They hook a fullsized keyboard and mouse and screen onto it and pretend that they are running on a desktop PC. Oh they curse and swear and wait and wait and wait, and those poor laptop Hdd's grind away and blow there little brains out trying to cope with huge applications. It seems to me that instead of worrying about how fast the proccessor is we should be worrying more about I/O, Memory, Harddisk speed etc. THOSE are the main performance killers in Laptops today.
What are you doing with your laptop? Crunching numbers? I would recommend you use a dual CPU workstation for that...
People who use laptops do it because they travel a lot, they are mostly typing stuff in planes, making presentations... What kind of speed do you need for that? Do you think Crusoe is not fast enough for Powerpoint and Word?
I for one, would like to have one to be able to play Mame and programm some Java or C++ on the move (being regularly stuck for hours in planes, I will buy one of these so I have something to do).
Julien
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
For chissakes, the G3 gets by on 5 anyway, but the Apple does not have significantly more battery life than a comprable P3.
You're kinda right, but they do get to use the same processors in the laptops as in the desktops, so where this shows is in the laptop performance.
Heh, guess people have different senses of humor...
Also, thanks for the flame. I love it when people call me dumb for trying to make someone laugh. ;-)
Free music from Jack Merlot.
It is possible to get adequate laptop performance and battery life
If you can find a big enough wheelbarrow to carry the car batteries and refrigeration plant.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
I don't.
First of all, gcc is not as good as you think.
Second, if you bypass Code Morphing(tm) you also bypass all of the run-time optimizations. This is definitely a loose.
Now, what I would like to see is front end for a nicer ISA than x86, but since there is limited market for that at best I'm not holding my breath.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
I don't think that Dell has a fear of Intel as such, they're probably just playing it safe. It's the old "Nobody ever got fired for buying ." First it happened with IBM, now Microsoft and Intel. Dell isn't scared of Intel, if anything, it should be the other way around. Intel should be afraid that Dell, one of its largest customers, and one of the few that remains Intel-only, would switch to AMD or Transmeta for its desktop processors.
There is no 'A' in definitely; also, in intel's pocket or no, I don't like Gateway's product. I usually don't like the way the machine is configured on shipping and reinstalling is -never- a smooth process (I'm not entirely convinced what they send you on CD is the same as what they ship on the harddrive.) I've always been happy with Dell machines... well, as happy as you can be with a windows machine. (I only get these prebuilt winsystems for work, of course, at home I build my own Linuxbox.)
Actually, how fast have the PC emulators gotten? I never tried VirtualPC before.
My completely subjective feeling is that VPC on a G4/450 is roughly as snappy as a P166, maybe a P233. Good enough for everything I need it for.
New desktop PC's out-perform laptops
North Dakota expects colder weather than Texas this year
Gerneralissimo Francisco Franco is still dead
Of course Compaq and Dell are going to tell you that this chip is crap. They are not using it. The companies that are using it are just as sure to tell you that the chip is an "Intel Killer" or something.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Dynamo has an advantage: it was working on code compiled for the same processor: there wasn't any "translation" from one ISA to another.
/adaptation won't offset the benefit of the recompilation.
I'm not convinced that the cost of the translation
Remenber when Apple came with the PPC, there were several 80x86/680xx interpretor which came along, and each time they came with the same argument that they could use the additional runtime information to be better than the original CPU and each time they fail to deliver.
Java is another example of hype where proponents say that interpreted code can be faster than compiled code. So why is TowerJ (a compiler for Java), is always the best in benchmarks ?
'scuse me? I sure as heck *can* tell the difference between my P2-400 and P3-600 machines... I do 3d mapping work from time to time, and what brings the P2 to its *knees* is smooth and flowing on the P3. Besides that, my compile times are about 1/2 of what they were on the P2. Just because Joe Average playing xbill won't notice the speed increase doesn't mean that none of us will. Regards, -mh. The "average user" is kind of a myth... as requirements keep skyrocketing while technology advances and software gets more and more capable (and complex), processor speed and capabilities are just as valid concerns as disk space and memory. How many people do you know who are still doing productive work on a 286?
Rock is dead. Long live scissors and paper!
They have some nice demos of DVD players, etc. If you've seen the execution profile, you'll realize that even this doesn't use much sustained CPU performance. The necessary speed comes in 30fps bursts... And consider how you use your machine, even desktop, for most of the time. If what you do depends heavily on interaction, you'll need performance only in bursts. No, Transmeta chips aren't going to be great for scientific computing. They aren't targetting that market.
And the dynamic compilation gives them the ability to improve `hardware' speed through a software upgrade. No user-side changes necessary. Given some of their hiring decisions (including folks from UCI), I don't doubt there will be continued performance improvements for all their hardware for quite a while. The wonderful part is that someone who bought their physical hardware initially will still find some improvements the year after they bought it. They won't need to drool over the newer processors, but rather flash their BIOS to have a good chunk of the newer processor.
Business execs (the ones who need laptops) don't do much more than type papers. Why do they care if their computers are a tad slower than high-end chips?
One reason: bragging rights. It's always the suits who want to run all the fancy CPU-intensuve crapola to show off, so they're the ones who 'need' to have the latest and greatest. They also don't pey out of pocket for their machines, they usually lease, and it counts as a business expense.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
A bit offtopic, but could someone explain what goes on with Yahoo hosting other peoples' news reports?
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
I wish someone would mod your post up! Unfortunately even though I have mod points right now, I'm in this topic already (obviously since you replied to me).
What distro of Linux do you use on your iBook? I think it's a really sweet little notebook. I thought about the graphite one because it is very classy. But, is 66mHz and a better color worth about $250? I actually like the blueberry (or whatever) colored one.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
I'm still watching for the first release of OpenPPC hardware; it too is not expected to be inexpensive. TotalImpact cards sound rather cool, but are apparently expensive enough that the vendor isn't willing indicate any pricing information on their web site; reportedly about $1K per CPU.
The "pricing structure" behind the PPCs just doesn't seem suited to laptop deployment that occurs "because they're low powered."
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Laptops have always been lower performance than desktops. (IMHO) Why should this be an issue now?
- Eagles may soar, but weasel's don't get sucked into jet engines...
No, I'd be fine issuing Crusoe laptops, but the market always gravitates towards having the most powerful processors available. The Intel chips that can outperform the Crusoe (though not power consumptionwise) will be in laptops by the time the Crusoe laptops are selling. That's what I mean. Everybody is going to want to run Windows 2000, which has features that are a pain in the ass even on my 733 at work. Add to that the additional bog from the crap that most users load on their computers and the high res screensavers that come with 2000, and suddenly your Crusoe starts to be treading on thin ice.
Also, this chip runs pretty darn cool and on low power. If you can pop a chip that powerful into a palm device, why would you prefer to put it in a huge laptop? If I can carry a computer as powerful as a laptop in my pocket, why would I want to carry it in a briefcase?
Eh...
Do you think it could be because of fear of the big bad..Intel? Dell still doesn't carry Athlons, i think they are afraid of Intel. When are companies going to pick the best chip for the job instead of trying not to offend the mothership?
Namely, that the only reason that this company has gotten so much press at all is because of all the Linus-worshippers out there who have hyped this chip up to unrealistic levels. It uses a concept that thus far is unproven (and actually looks like it doesn't work well at all so far, by the reactions of IBM, Compaq, and Dell) yet some people around here act as if it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Seriously -- how many people around here would ever talk about, unless it was to dismiss them as toys, webpads if Microsoft or Apple came out with them instead of Transmeta aiming for that market? But, since Linus works there *cue angelic harp music*, it's gotta be wonderful.
Sorry, but some of you guys set yourself up for your own letdown by buying into the hype and now are looking to point fingers elsewhere. You should be angry at Transmeta for playing you like a string violin by hiring Linus, not at companies who can't afford to base product lines on disproven hype. I won't say I told you so (even though I did), but in the future you should always take marketing hype with more than a few grains of salt, whether Linus Torvalds is a part of the company or not.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
I'd love to get a Crusoe iBook if Apple ever decided to use Transmeta's chips. A neat little notebook like the iBook would be great with a long battery life... especially with a DVD-ROM & wireless NIC in it.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
I think you'll find that 90% of the processor's power is spent in busywait loops waiting for you to do something. That number is probably pretty low. This is why LongRun is such a neat idea.
You just don't need the cycles, 95% of the time. And when you do need them, the chip switches gears and runs faster.
Johan
This supposed GREAT laptop battery life you will get with the Crusoe, but I am not buying it. The processor is ONE component, among many. Even the P3 is not the biggest hog in a laptop.
Open Ports, the LCS, the DVD/CD and the HDD all burn MUCH more power. So BFD, even f the Crusoe gets by on 1/30 the power of a P3, it will not translate into more than an extra 1/2 hour. For chissakes, the G3 gets by on 5 anyway, but the Apple does not have significantly more battery life than a comprable P3.
I am rooting for it. But like with Apple and Linux and other techs, there is more hype than substance.
Tom
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
FYI the Commodore VIC-20 used the Motorola 6502
The Comodore 64 use the Motorola 6510.
Wow! Look at all the pretty colors!
I'd like to see a Linux Crusoe notebook and a gcc compiler that can generate native Crusoe code. That would be cool, I think.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Compaq has always been a front runner. Whether it be Intel or Microsoft, Compaq has always gone out of its way to placate the giants. Sure, Compaq has invested in Transmeta. But who wouldn't. Transmeta, as an idea is great. Compaq has never been a pioneer and will only move to Transmeta once they are certifiably successful. Guess that's why they're losing market share like crazy.
IBM is taking the lead on the Crusoe. As such, they'll reap the rewards
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
The reason that the preformance of the transmeta chip is lower because it has the code morphing software on it. It can run x86 solaris alpha and maybe ppc im not sure. Thats why it has to convert the code to its own natural code then it flys. Personally I rather have a chip that uses less power and can run software made for other platforms. With some work I bet you could quad boot that sucker or even more for you os loveing pleasure! :)
The Beaver The Best Things In Life Are Free And So Is Linux!
Frankly, it sounds like Dell and Compaq are playing it smart. Let the other companies see if there is a demand AND take the heat for the slow speed* and then come out with laptops in about 6 months.
*Not that the Crusoe is really slow. But a lot of people are going to be confused about MHz for a while after these come out.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Has anyone else noticed that Crusoe comes bundled with closed source, proprietary software that you, the lowly consumer, are not allowed to read, replace or modify? I'm talking about the interpreter and emulation engine shipped in ROM and automatically loaded by the processor during boot. If that software were open source then people could do cool things like target GCC for the bare-bones Crusoe chip or hack a new interpreter for Java byte code. But it's not. It's closed-source, proprietary, if-you-read-this-code-we-will-sue-you software.
I personally am not opposed to all closed source software on principle, but it pisses me off to see clueless slashdot weanies bash everyone else in the world for having closed source software but then give Transmeta a break. Apparently selling closed source software is okay as long as you hire a Linux guru to write it.
I personally would love to own a Transmeta laptop or webpad (screw performance -- I need battery life), but I am a bit of a security freak and I don't like the fact that the Transmeta interpreter could accidentally or maliciously compromise my entire system, and I have no way of examining it to see if it is safe.
Just the same I don't know of anyone who does any serious heavy computing on a laptop.
I'm a software engineer working on the OS for a major computer manufacturer. I do all my development work on my laptop, whether I am travelling or not. It has plenty of power - I can rebuild the entire OS from source on my machine.
Perhaps you are looking at the wrong sort of laptop?
Sailing over the event horizon
Personally I'd kill to have a laptop that performs like say, a PII300 but has 7+ hrs of battery life [that isn't an apple :) ] as opposed to a PIII 700 that only has 2.5hrs of life. I don't use laptops for that much CPU intensive work. They aren't designed for it. They're designed to get some work done while travelling [Ok, some games too] A 2hr battery is useless on a 6hr cross-country trip.
I personally think Transmeta has a huge winner with this chip. Sure future versions will probably increase performance but since what they provide NOW is totally adequate, anything more is just icing on the cake. :)
And of course that's not even considering the cool web-pad like devices that can be made with them...
Hitachi, IBM, NEC or Fujitsu will almost definitely get my $ when these laptops are available.
Ender
Nothing to see here
did anyone else notice that this is the first time Transmeta has been spelled on /. with a lower-case 't'? we're getting downright vulgar in our talking about them, they must be mainstream
strange things are afoot at the Circle K...
It's natural that some companies will be slow to embrace new brands coming out. Compaq started using AMD chips, but only in their lower-end models until the Athlons came out. Dell still doesn't ship AMD machines. I don't see Transmeta being in trouble though, with big names like IBM, NEC and Hitachi on board.
For Compaq and Dell, there's probably also an issue of how the name looks to Joe Consumer. There's still a lot of people out there who won't look at a computer unless it has "Intel Inside" pimping on the case. If Crusoe kicks as much butt as we all think it will, though, it won't take long for everyone else to jump on the bandwagon.
Emulation is getting better...slowly (no pun intended). Part of the problem is SoftWindows/Virtual PC are trying to add functionality (like ethernet/dhcp) into the Virtual machine at the same tiem they try to improve performance.
On my G3 300, I can emulate (about) a P2-166...with virtual memory turned off and gving it 128 MB of RAM.
Tom
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
From some insider information that has been collected, Transmeta is gonna take atleast next five years to be able to compete in the market. They have been living all along with some linux hype and been riding the same waves that VAlinux and Redhat did before the market realised that Linux exactly isnt delivering as it promised. Ever since the market crumbled, Transmeta also took a backseat and has been whispering on the sidelines for sometime now. I believe it wont be long before they are either shouldered by Intel or some other chip company or be gobbled up by one of them. Transmeta would sooner or later realise that its playing in to a huge market which separates reality from hype sooner or later.
When in doubt - RTFM
Rapid Nirvana
An iBook /does/ get 5-6 hours of continuous usage at a very respectable clock rate. This is due to low power consumption of the G3s, a large (and heavy) battery, and some insane power management hacks in the OS. Hopefully OS X will be able to achieve similar powersave performance.
BTW: Don't bother posting MHz numbers. A Pentium II @ 450Mhz != PPC G4 @ 450MHz, its what you do with the cycles that counts
First, there are a few lines that appear to be truncated, as if the editor didn't have any coffee this morning.
But what really made me snicker was this line, quoted verbatim from near the bottom of the article.
Notebooks ain't all
That's it; no period, no ending, just the single crystalline thought "Notebooks ain't all"
Which kind of makes me want to go run right now and change my sig.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Yup. I didn't write that to be 10000% accurate, just to make the show why a 700MHz != another 700MHz chip.
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
and dynamo from HP showed us that these gains are not inconsiderable. Infact, it is likely the case that native/sub-morphing code would run slower than interpreted/morphed code.
Cute!
Transmeta showed off its cool-running TM 5400 Crusoe chip for notebook PCs at its "Gilligan's Island"-style booth
Crusoe? Robinson Crusoe? Anyone? Anyone? Island? Company theme?
Fucking GILLIGAN?
It just bugs me when people overlook symbolism as blatant as the Crusoe thing because some inane pop-culture reference like freaking Bob Denver vehicles overshadow literary references.
This is a technology that should have been present when Transmeta was founded. Instead, we spend all our time wasting excess wattage simply so we can all brag about our multi-mega-gigawatt-ultrahertz cpus that can crunch distributed.net rc5 packets in milliseconds, or find ET using the seti@home client.
If you're running that on your laptop, good. Go screw yourself, and you'll probably enjoy it while you're at it.
The average user simply refuses to understand at all how a computer operates and instead resorts to lashing out at the people who go to work every day just to take calls from these complete jackasses.
The IT industry as a whole breeds contempt for ignorance and idiocy. However, those aspects are taking over the IT industry.
I work for a software company and have all but stopped giving a damn whatsoever. There is so much miscommunication, lack of research and blatant stupidity that it's simply not worth my time anymore.
Uh... back to the Crusoe - I'd actually consider these CPUs far more suitable for server work than any other (yes, there are typically low power consumption, solid architecture CPUs but skip those for now). If a web or ftp server is not being pounded to death, why would you need a quad CPU 500Mhz rig sitting around eating up 50% of its normal consumption? Thanks for the thought intel, but that isn't what counts in my book. Not when it comes to computers.
The entire concept of generic computers on a whole is modularity. You can stick a Whizz-bang video card in, or a Lame Inc. turd to do some business work. Why should the CPU be any different? Transmeta's CPUs have almost none of the excessive architecture-dependent idiosyncrasies that the x86 platform does. MMX, SIMD, 3DNow! (can't remember what Apple's implementation was called - stupid product names. just put it in and make it work, dont waste money with the marketing, but thats another rant).
As a final point; Transmeta is indirectly a result of intel and Microsoft's sorely inadequate products (come on, 20-bit memory addressing??? leave the ingenious tricks to the 3D graphics programmers). The whole Wintel based industry has such a cracked foundation with so much bloat sitting on top that it's going to bring itself down. Open source just happens to be the catalyst.
I, for one, say good riddance and can't wait for native Crusoe programs to be run. That ought to be pretty sweet.
Now screw my head back on, I think all that ranting just burned up a few more brain cells.
Honestly, aside from the engineers no one in our company needs the performance of even the lowest end of Dell's CPU offerings (500mhz).
:P
We habitually buy the cheapest CPU's we can get, a little extra RAM than usual, a moderately sized HD, and the vast majority of our userbase is happy. No one's office software comes close to maxing out their CPU, and even the lowest end systems now have respectable 2D video performance well capable of marketing presentations. I wish we had the option of buying even slower-CPU systems for a reasonable discount but alas, chips only get so cheap...
Unless you're a designer/engineer/scientist/gamer, you're not scratching the capability of the CPU, and if you are you need to kill winamp, your software dvd player, SETI, and l0pthcrack and get back to work
Before you flame me keep in mind I'm talking about normal corporate users, not enthusiasts.
-OT
I'd enjoy a quad-crusoe laptop...
Amazing magic tricks
This is probably not some plot by the other chip manufacturers. It all comes down to sales channels and building up a market. Once there is a great demand, it is difficult for companies not flock to a product. This is basically what happened with Linux. The demand was there, and companies starting losing sales because they didn't have the OS. I'm sure the same thing will happen with TransMeta chips.
kick some CAD
who said that he was not going to use AMD Athlon chips in his systems because they were not as good as PIII's...he was right. They are better.
That ougth to be enough for anybody ...
Yeah, and Bill Gates was once quoted as saying that a 500MB hard drive would be enough for anybody as well. Microsoft Office 2000 alone takes up that much space now. As hardware gets faster, software makers will develop programs that will utilize that speed...
-----
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
First, I'm going to agree that writing "native" code for Crusoe doesn't really make sense. Vital pieces of architecture are implemented in low level software, so if you bypass that layer, you are left with an incomplete microprocessor. Plus, your compiler backend would only be useful for that *particular* rev of the Crusoe. That layer of abstraction allows Transmeta to reorganize their architecture far more easily than other chip makers who have to worry about compatibility at the silicon level. I have no doubt that they will be using that advantage.
But I want to ask about another part of your post.
I keep hearing people snicker at gcc, but I haven't heard any solid arguments as to why it's "not that great". How is it inferior to other compilers? Does it not optimize as well? Is it less efficient generating code on certain architectures? Is it not as ANSI compliant as we might like?
My experiences with gcc have always been pleasant, and I use it instead of a vendor's system compiler whenever I can. Perhaps I'm biased since I've encountered way too many Sun's that still use ancient, pre-ANSI C compilers. No doubt, well maintained system are in better shape, but I'm wondering how much better than gcc they really are.
Please fill me in.
--Lenny
Your beefy 750 Mhz Pentium III has a set of opcodes in it that mimic something called the Z80, used in CP/M machines (and several machines like the Commodore 64)[1].
While I'm not exactly sure how similar the Z80's instruction set is to the x86 family, I do know that the C64 never used a Z80 chip, they used 6502 processors. Now gameboys use Z80's, that'd be interesting, a CP/M port to the gameboy.
-- iCEBaLM
I totally agree on this.
At my work we usually shoot for AMD K6-II chips running 350 - 450mzh. We try to put 64 megs of ram with good 2D system (I still can not get the boss to spend an extra $50 for higher end 15 inch monitor) and a cheap PCI 100 Mbit card. Our workers need nothing else than MS Word, Outlook Express, Windows 98SE and Goldmine 5. I think we usually get these for less than $500 and they last for 2 or 3 years.
Linux O Muerte!
Isn't that the point, though? That it's not hot? ;)
Crusoe: because it's a laptop; not a lap warmer
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
I can tell you this though if you are a gamer -- I own 2 Falcon Northwest Mach V PCs (indisputably the fastest gaming machines on the planet, albeit a bit pricey). For those of you who don't know them, they build custom gaming rigs from scratch, to your order, with exactly the components you want starting with the motherboard. Go to a gaming show like E3 and you'll see their boxes in many booths because game companies know and want their games to look as good as possible.
When I was purchasing the newest one back in Novemeber, Falcon told me that they were recommending an Athlon. I said, "Huh?! You're kidding me! Come on! I know AMD is getting better, but..." They said...Look, we have a rep in this business for making the best gaming machines on the market. Customers like you buy from us only because we're the best. We wouldn't say this if we hadn't tested the crap out of these machines in every way. In every test we ran, Athlon's outperform PIIIs at the same clock speed by about 10%. The only question we've had for the past few months was reliability, and they've finally overcome all those problems. (Falcon picks up any faulty machine under warranty from your house and overnights it to their shop, fixes it, and overnights it back to the customer for free. That's a warranty!) We'll custom build you a PIII if you want, but honestly, we recommend the Athlon...
I bought the Athlon 650 and it rocks! Two days later I bought a crapload of AMD stock at $28 a share...and the rest, my friend, is history.
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
I apologize for the horrible spelling and grammer. I accidently hit submit instead of preview.
I'd like to see a Linux Crusoe notebook and a gcc compiler that can generate native Crusoe code. That would be cool, I think.
-Sigh- OKAY... One Last Time -- there IS NO native code set for Crusoe chips. There IS NO point in coding a compiler for the layer of code under the morphing layer.
Two chips have already been released, and they have wildly different "native code" layers. Chips with the exact same model number might have different "native code".
Here's a little history to explain where they are going - Back in the Bad Old Days of computing, the computers had a circuit board covered with transistors, resistors and such for every single function. When you "programmed" those beasts, you were actually telling it very specific instructions on how that *one* computer should do things. Each and every model was different, often with significant differences between each *machine*.
Then Computer Languages came along, and made people happy for awhile. Although you had to write a compiler/interpreter for each machine you made, the programs could work across different machines.
Opcodes, and Integrated Circuits came *later*. Once they showed up, you could change the underlying circuitry and still maintain compatability, since you were programming to an "Instruction Set" that would stay the same across that family of processors.
Your beefy 750 Mhz Pentium III has a set of opcodes in it that mimic something called the Z80, used in CP/M machines (and several machines like the Commodore 64)[1].
Okay... so now, Crusoe is attempting to abstract the circuitry yet another layer with it's intelligent "code morphing" layer. In theory, the CM layer can do all sorts of loop optimizations, creating new structures that perform faster and faster the more times they are used.
At least, that's the theory, and what they present on their site and in their presentations. I don't know how real it is, as the benchmarks seem not to reflect what they claim.
But the point it - if you write natively, your program won't necessarily work on another machine *with the same chip*, and certainly won't work on any other Crusoe chips. Plus, you eliminate the advantages of any optimization that the Code Morphing layer delivers.
Think of it this way -- all the people clamoring for "Native Crusoe Code" are basically doing the same thing as people asking video driver programmers "Can you bypass those 3D and 2D accelerator chips so we can use the normal VGA registers? Yes, we know we'll have to write a seperate program for each video card."
[1] I ported over some CP/M utilities from an Apple ][+ with a Z80 card to an original IBM PC. I still have that PC, and years later looked at it's serial number. 512. Yeah, baby.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Actually Dell's pimp is Intel, not Microsoft. dell has been offering Linux on their servers for a while now. Plus the Crusoe runs windows.
But just try to get an Athlon system from Dell.
Q.
Posted by 11223:
640kb of ram? That ought to be enough for anybody...
Posted by 11223:
640kb of ram? That ought to be enough for anybody...
Posted by 11223:
640kb of ram? That ought to be enough for anybody...
Actually Dell's pimp is Intel, not Microsoft. dell has been offering Linux on their servers for a while now. Plus the Crusoe runs windows.
But just try to get an Athlon system from Dell.
i concede your point. actually, my firewall is a dell linux server! i guess i should have spelled it WinTel.
hey the post was funny and i typed it quick. who cares about facts - this is slashdot!
(-;
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
This argument isn't about comparing desktops vs. portables, it is about comparing Transmeta's Chips with Intel's, AMD's, and National Semiconductor's.
-- Speaking for myself.
Every movement has gone that way. The ones that failed are the ones that cared about those decisions.
Frankly it's time to bring the dragon down. All those opinions you're whining about won't mean a shit when those whiners can't get anything done in a timely manner.
There's an old story about small-timer saying "Blow me" to a big timer. Guess who's still around.
As someone who is interested in getting out of this mess the industry has caused, I see your position as a cop out. Any fool can write about staying in the system.
Pray tell have you any original thought about how to get out?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
2.8.1 may be old, but it's the most recent "stable" release of the compiler. In fact, many still consider 2.7.2 to be the most recent "stable" version for various reasons, although many of these people consider that due to the fact that 2.8.1 breaks their (broken) code, not due to 2.8.1 being unstable.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Read the suject =)
The Compaq Prosignia 190 (now discontinued) has long battery life, by featuring three batteries in its case. Besides the built-in battery, two extra batteries (a $179 12-cell and $129 8-cell) can fit into the Prosignia's modular CD-ROM drive and floppy drive bays. The trio of power packs runs for up to 9 hours, says Compaq.
(Info from pcworld.com)
If thats how Compaq wants battery life, with no CD and floppy and a lot of weight, they can keep it.
Wasn't the WHOLE point of the Crusoe chip to draw a tiny amount of power? Yeah, they talked about optimizations in the chip, but those were not about out performing their AMD/Intel counterpart, just achiving the lowest power consumption possible while achiving accecptable performance. I liked this:
"Dell has found that the
performance of the current TM 5400 chips is not yet up to par with similarly rated mobile chips from Intel."
That sounds to me like (although I could be totaly off as this has no basis) management saw a nice juicey 700MHz number, and thought that it will run just like the latest 700MHz Pentium. This is to all who are confused: 700MHz is the Clock Speed. That is the number of times an operation CAN be performed per second. (~7 Million) That can vary wildly. If there is a cache miss, then you get less. If two unrelated regesters are used (in most x86 chips for years) then you can get more. There is no way that a 700 MHz chip running an additional layer of code, code morphing, is going to touch a chip that is running native instructions. There is also no way the native chips can touch the power consumption as long as the chip doesn't use as many transistors. (Well, that's not ALL the way true.) The point is that the Crusoe is not about performance, it is about not needing 2 batteries for you laptop just to use it for more than <exageration> 10 Minutes!!!</exageration> This is for people who could probibly be using a computer like a Pentium/450 with out complaning but DO complane if they have to keep changing laptop bateries.
--Josh
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
You're right, of course... I got that backwards. They do share the same opcodes, but the Z80 cloned the 8088. (Click here).
And how many other people here programmed a 4004? I found one in a music-tone guitar, ripped it out, and played with it. It was obsolete then, so they kept making them for quite awhile.
Oh, and as to the fact that the Commie 64 didn't have a Z80 - oops. I mentally thought to myself as I was typing: "It had a 6502 (like my trusty Apple ][+), and a Z80, and people are going to complain that it didn't have a Z80 because it had two CPUs".
It was the Commodore 128 that had a Z80 for CP/M mode. Both the 64 and 128 had 6502s as their main processor.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
You must read The Onion too. My fave article was "O'Rielly book features animal on cover"
I simply need more time and they give me only power.
You're not using that power effectively, then. Everybody knows that a processor that's twice as fast allows you to get your work done in half the time. >:)
-j
If you want a fast, low power-consumption chip to run Linux, why not a PowerPC?
They've all got one freakin' mouse button, that's way.
I'd buy an iBook in a skinny minute if it had three, or even just two, mouse buttons.
But just one? That's a pain in the ass.
--
Mhz comparisons among different architectures don't mean crap. 300Mhz MIPS R12000 has faster FPU performance than your 1Ghz Athlon. You could claim that 700 Mhz P3 is faster than 500Mhz P3, but you can't just say that brand A cpu is faster than brand B cpu only because of clock speed difference.
What if the 700mhz crusoe performs worse than pentium 200MMX ?
How can you say that Dell is not in Intel's pocket, when Dell hasn't even adopted the architecturally superior AMD proccessors yet?
"God is dead." - Nietzsche
"God does not play dice with the Universe." - Albert Einstein
"Stop telling God what to do." - Niels Bohr
Should Dell be wooried about the performance? Laptops have less power than desktops, but that is the price you pay for portability. However, on the other hand people still want the most bang for thier buck. Just the same I don't know of anyone who does any serious heavy computing on a laptop.
Come see my website.
http://come.to/streiff
That ougth to be enough for anybody ...
NEW YORK -- While Crusoe's ship appears to have come in, some large PC makers have decided to hold off on adopting the new chip for notebook PCs. At least for now.
Jee.. I wonder for how long intel can keep paying these companies off... or threatening their first borns...
Since when did Compaq decide what will and wont disappoint users? Let's face it, once chips hit the 300-350MHz mark, you cant REALLY tell the difference between a 350 and a 700. I for one would probably soil my shorts to get a laptop that could run for the entire workday without being plugged in. Add that to my new 3com 11Mbps PC Card and I can work anywhere in my office for the whole day. I can sit in a closet and avoid users without sacrificing the ability to cruise Slashdot for hours on end!
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
I had to go to Gateway to get my Athlon workstation at the office. They are definately in Intel's pocket.
What's the surest way to make everyone on the planet disappointed with your news/product/whatever? Announce it 3 years in advance, but don't supply *any* information beyond that. People automatically expect the best case scenario. With all the rumor that surrounds 3 years of "this webpage is not here", I remember actually almost believing I would be running my new Amiga on some futuristic triangle-shaped chip that was going to run any OS at speeds that would crush Intel and Motorola. What a glorious day it would be when this new chip came out, and whoa! glory, upon glory, when they hired Linus I was sure this was just going to be the most amazing thing since sliced bread. Well, zap us back to the present... Transmeta has released their product and all the whitepapers for us to peruse, and what have we got? We've got a chip that might just get a little more time out of these barbaric batteries were using in our laptops. Oh boy. Pinch me, I must be dreaming. But wait, there's more: Code morphing! This info was actually leaked a few months before the chip's release, and what did people do? They assumed the best. They assumed you'd be running PowerPC, x86, and Alpha apps at full speed on this "super-chip". What actually exists today? A slow, low power chip that will supposedly run linux. Linus did demo Quake 3 running under Linux at their product announcement shindig, but that's the only time I've ever heard Linux associated with this chip. Well, to wrap up, if you're working on the "next big thing" try to keep it to yourselves instead of letting the world assume you really are going to come out with "the next big thing". For an example of this, Check out http://www.amiga.com. I'm not too excited about what they're doing, but they have pledged not to announce *anything* or promise any "groundbreaking technology" until release date. This is a great policy, IMO.
If you want a fast, low power-consumption chip to run Linux, why not a PowerPC? Sure, it's not x86, but there's a number of good PPC linux ports.
Yes, PPC has higher power consumption than Crusoe, but much lower than any equivalent x86. How do you think the new iMacs work with no fan?
From the article, it sounds like PPC would give you much better performance...
Well, after Microsoft, it looks like we'll need to take care of Intel, and maybe that darn sewing-circle of PC manufacturers, too.
;)
I agree with them to an extent, though: the Crusoe will probably see most of its success on web-pads and whatnot. If you're feeling cautious, wait until that takes off before you bet the farm on the low-end laptop business.
However, any laptop with even as much power as my K6/300 would be fine with me; and if it lasted for 8 hours or more, so much the better. I still don't see why I would want a computer that's 50% faster if it can only last 2 hours, and still does all the word-processing you could possibly expect a computer to do...
Oh wait, you're using Office 2000 on Windows 2000? What? On a laptop?!?? Never mind...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Sure, the notebook running a crusoe might take a second or two longer to load MSWord, but once it's loaded, few people will notice a difference, particularly if the machine has enough RAM.
Amazing magic tricks
I'm not waiting for a laptop.
I want a web-pad with a touch screen (optional keyboard) that has wireless Internet access form anywhere within my home.
The lower power consumption will make this sort of device a lot easier to hold and use due to a smaller battery.
If the connection was high bandwidth enough, it could even be running applications off a server in my home, and it could dispense with a hard drive entirely.
--
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
This CNET article talks about Gateway and IBM using Transmeta processors. I think this is a big victory for Gateway over Dell.
kwsNI
This is just hearsay and unconfirmed(then again, not much on the web isn't), but I have a buddy that works for AMD who told me a while back Intel dug Dell out of the hole when they where doing really bad financially and that there is an 'unofficial agreement' that Dell will never sell anything without an intel inside. It's actually too bad, because I really like Dell machines.
When life hands you a lemon, find some Tequilla and salt.
Yeah. I agree, but your friend will be sore indeed to find that this chip will not increase her/his uptime significantly.
Also, if you get an extra 1/2 hour, but have to work slower, wher is the savings?
Tom
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
Who even cares if it runs a tad bit slower than P3 systems? Almost no one actually uses the power their computer gives them who doesn't do compiling or stuff like that. I'm doing CAD at work on a Pentium w/ 32 megs of RAM, and doing just fine. Business execs (the ones who need laptops) don't do much more than type papers. Why do they care if their computers are a tad slower than high-end chips?
Colin Winters
Actually, from what I have read and heard (A buddy of mine does test bench testing on the Crusoe at IBM) is that the Transmeta is going after an even smaller market. -- Cell phones, and things like PDAs.
So, as you said, the smaller appliances are the target, but laptops is a pretty good start.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
(my theory, anyway): They don't design or build their own laptops anymore. (I'm not sure Dell ever did, or perhaps they gave it up after their first disastrous foray into notebooks.) Dell's going to have to wait for Compal and the other Taiwanese manufacturers to switch over before they'll have something to sell. Dunno whose machine Compaq puts their badge on, but no doubt someone else will either tell me or point out that I have no idea what I'm talking about...
The SCO lawsuit makes me wish my company were in Utah. We need a new building.
...that Jon Katz is still a fucking moron.
Keep in mind that 2-3Hrs is on Intel/AMD based laptops. Apple already has laptops that will do 5 hrs [10hrs with 2 batteries]. I think that laptops based on Transmeta chips will have no problem beating 5-6hrs so buy some ketchup, your "Yugo sandwich" will be served soon. :)
Ender
Disclaimer: I'm NOT a fan of Apple computers, so I think it's about time we can get an x86 compatible laptop with good battery life
Nothing to see here
"Yahoo! has an article from ZDNet News that details how Compaq and Dell are shying away from Crusoe notebooks "for now".
"We just can't afford to anger our pimp." Said Dell's spokesperson. "Microsoft has always been good to us, and he doesn't like that ho Linus!"
"When I can give the customer full-size notebook performance," said Kyle Ranson, vice president and general manager of Compaq's Transactional Business Segment.
Kyle emphasized the importance of full-size notebook performance, noting that most customers expected a high framerate from their toy paperclip, and the ability to fry eggs on their CPU for all 45 minutes of battery life. When asked if he had considered the needs (and lower cpu requirements) of Linux users, Ranson responded:
"We're going to be taking care of those people shortly. Er... I mean... I'm not sure that Linux will be favorably recieved by Microsoft.Net."
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
In my opinion, these processors are better suited to be the high power processors of yet smaller devices. The laptop industry has moved beyond the speeds of the crusoe processors, but smaller devices where more power is desireable are really where the 1st generation crusoe's belong. A couple months ago, though, the crusoe's would have really given Intel a run for their money (they still are with the whole power consumption deal, but I am willing to bet that the GHz notebooks will be out soon). Also, in cost, they seem to have Intel beat in value for the buck.
Eh...
When 3 of the top 5 PC companies announce they plan to use a completely new processor, this is a good thing. Consider that even in the best case the companies that do intend to support Crusoe will roll them out slowly while they make adjustments necessary for all of the quirks that will appear for video, sound, modem and network adapters....and so on. If Compaq and Dell don't want to commit, so what? Go buy another brand and stop complaining.
It might all be true and all, but when everything is said and done, and the smoke clears, and the first laptops actually ship, I'll eat a Yugo if they run substantially longer than a thrifty laptop today. By SUBSTANTIALLY I mean twice as long or so. Considering a current laptop maybe does 2-3h of CONTINUOUS USE, a Crusoe laptop would have to go for at least 5-6h for me to give a shit. Anything less is hardly revolutionary. And I seriously doubt we'll see that kind of battery life. If IBM is right and the Thinkpad they're promising will really do 8h, now that would be something to behold. Until then, I'll remain the stubborn and pigheaded skeptic I am.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Actually, MicroBerto got the first post on this article. Proof. (~74k JPEG--Lynx snapshot in window maker)
the real at&t mix
"The Internet is made of cats."
Although computer usage on college campuses is growing, laptops are still targeted at the corporate market. They are usually purchased for people whose job requires them to travel alot. This is where the Crusoe is going to hit big!
A typical flight requires you to check in 1 hour before flight time. Then, most commuter flights are probably right around 2-4 hours. This totals to about 3-5 hours of usable laptop computing time. With most current laptops you would be lucky if you had this much life in your battery.
When businesses decide to buy a laptop they probably take all the factors: speed, battery life, options into account when purchasing a laptop. Before the Crusoe, the battery life wasn't significantly increased if they choose a slightly slower processor. Now, the slower processors make a little more sense, because although the computer might be slightly slower, the amount of usable time of the computer significantly increases.
While these machines might not appeal to the student gamer, they appeal greatly to the business world.
On our college campus, maybe 50% of students have laptops, maybe a little less. Most of us don't have them for their battery life, they simply take up less precious desk space and can be lugged to the library and plugged in there when we need to study.
Battery life becomes a non-issue, most of the time. On campus, laptops simply mean you can lug your computer out of your dorm room in one piece. So what if a new processor uses less power? Students still need fast processors to play games and do work, just in notebook form.
Besides, how often are you really away from a power outlet for eight hours?
Well that post was pointeless, redundant, and pointless.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
It doesn't say anything about how well it will perform against other chips, only that you would expect a 700 Mhz model X Crusoe to be faster than a 600 Mhz model X Crusoe, because it doesn't say how many clock cycles it takes to get the equivalent job done on each architecture. That's why you it's pretty much accepted that a 300 Mhz G3 will outperform a 333 Mhz Celeron.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Has anyone done any extensive benchmarking on laptops using CPU "Software cooling programs?". You know the programs - the ones written for overclockers. Unless I'm missing something super-obvious, wouldn't this be a great way to increase the battery life on your laptop?
From what I read these programs stop/slow down your CPU a whole lot so they don't overheat when you've got your Celeron 300A clocked to 533 or whatever. If run on a laptop, it would slow it down whenever you weren't doing anything, resulting in longer battery life - I'd think. Can anyone with a laptop who's tried this perhaps comment on this?
You just have to buy them yourself. I use the M$ optical mouse with a wheel. Love it, except that's it died last week.
OK, it's $40-50 more to spend.
Oh, to reply to my own message, here are some interesting and worthwhile links related to GCC performance:
- NullStone compiler optimization benchmarks. On this page, they give some comparisons between GCC and some other compilers.
- The Stepanov Benchmark page at KAI. The Stepanov Benchmark measures C++ abstraction penalty. GCC sucks wind on this one (as do most C++ compilers), whereas Apples MrC compiler slices through the abstraction and gets a "perfect score" (eg. no penalty).
- The GCC site contains many interesting tidbits, some of which I mentioned above. For instance, news on the Sparc backend details some of the issues I described above. Note, although that rewrite occurred in late 1998, I still see the older backend's behavior in gcc 2.8.1, which is what we have at work.
- Slashdot's story on the Compaq Alpha compiler. Some good data down in the comments.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Technically, the chips are intriguing and appeal to the nerd crowd (myself included). But even if they perform at 50% compared to the latest laptops, how many business travelers would want one solely for the increased battery life? I know that when I travel across the US, to Asia, or Europe, I'm nursing the batteries all the way. And I'm only running 'simple' applications.
Given the hype and counter-hype, these may be the most eagerly awaited benchmarks in recent memory. It's great to see competition at this level.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Hmmm, as one of my friend said: "I'd never buy such a stupid (and expensive) thing like full-featured notebook in its current stage. How can I use it if it's not able to survive more than 2-4 hours or so. I'd like to prepare/rearrange my materials for presentation in a train, I don't need to play q3a in 100fps. I simply need more time and they give me only power.
I have an alter-ego at Red Dwarf. Don't remind me that coward.
Dell has been fucked so many times by Intel it's not even funny... .Even when I worked there Intel was bending Dell over the table.
Dell will continually be screwed until they show Intel that they aren't the only chip makers on the playing field....
O well... Dell should embrace AMD and others to show Intel who really has control
ChiefArcher
This is EXACTLY what I want. And I want it to be able to run as an X-terminal so I can use the power of my desktop anywhere in the house (in the world?).
Let's go into business together and do this.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
It will be a momentous day when I can surf the web and take a dump at the same time.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD