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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."
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
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.
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.
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...
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 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)
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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'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.
I like Dell too. But they don't sell Athlons and that's what I wanted.
I like Dell too. But they don't sell Athlons and that's what I wanted.
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
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
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
I had to go to Gateway to get my Athlon workstation at the office. They are definately in Intel's pocket.
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.
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.
--
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This CNET article talks about Gateway and IBM using Transmeta processors. I think this is a big victory for Gateway over Dell.
kwsNI
I had some serious reliability problems with my Gateway laptop last year, and learned all about that bumpy reinstall process 5,6 or 7 times. If Gateway starts shipping Crusoe-based laptops, I'll worry less about the hit in processing power, and more about my hard drive bursting into flames every 4 months. It's great that they're willing to try and get out from under Intel by shipping AMD and Transmeta systems, but after the burn I took from them last time Dell is looking a lot better for a Windows machine.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
...that Jon Katz is still a fucking moron.
"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...
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?
It is only those who have NOT been successful that complain about the "system". If you work hard
and play by the rules the "system" will treat you just fine.
My ass. It's those who depend on the "successful' whop complain about the new guy. That's what this thread is about. Geez sollipsists, not only do you not read comments, you fit the comments to assumptions based on a few words you read. You have no capacity to grasp subtle differences.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
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.
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.
--
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