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Via One-ups Transmeta

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the lower-power-equals-happier-laptops dept.

An aonymous reader submitted that"Via just announced the Eden platform, which promises lower power consumption than Transmeta. If it follows the C3 line of CPUs, I'm guessing it will also deliver much better performance at a lower cost (the C3s gave significantly better performance than Transmeta, but at just under 10W, so a bit more power)."

112 comments

  1. Transmeta was overhyped by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow, what a letdown!

  2. Excellent.. by PopeAlien · · Score: 2

    Even if this doesn't pan out to be as good as it sounds, I love to see competition in this area. I would really like to have a fanless computer for my desktop, and a laptop that can last for more than a day on a full charge AND run some high-falutin' graphics & games..

    --
    air and light and time and space
    1. Re:Excellent.. by YKnot · · Score: 4, Offtopic

      There are more energy-hogs in a laptop than just the cpu. Display, harddisk and recently the graphics accelerators need a good share of the battery life. Decreasing the power consumption of the cpu alone won't get us very much closer to the one-day-per-charge laptop, although it's certainly a step in the right direction. Other interesting applications of less wasteful processors are clusters and servers, which otherwise need expensive cooling.

    2. Re:Excellent.. by Electrum · · Score: 1

      I would really like to have a fanless computer for my desktop

      Mac Cubes don't have fans. Your local CompUSA should have a demo unit that you can check out. Apple engineers make some cool hardware.

  3. What? by dj28 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    An "aonymous" reader? Is that something close to 'anonymous'?

    1. Re:What? by linzeal · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      The spelling challanged reader probably is none other than commander taco himself. Scandel (sic)!

      --
      An Education is the Font of All Liberty
  4. Linus? by The+Great+Wakka · · Score: 1

    Does that mean he's out of the job if Eden outseats Crusoe? It's sad to think that he might have to look for jobs. :( He works at Transmeta, doncha know.

    --
    Everything is mainstream now.
    1. Re:Linus? by The+Great+Wakka · · Score: 1

      Please! The comment was half-sarcasm!

      --
      Everything is mainstream now.
    2. Re:Linus? by Broken+Bottle · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that would be sad because I guy with his reputation would have a horribly difficult time finding work....

      pfffff :)
      Chris

    3. Re:Linus? by nomadic · · Score: 1

      Really? I thought it was all sarcasm...

  5. Low power by percy's+other · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    In the scheme of things, does it really matter? Does anything really matter? The only true power is that of Our Lord. Papa Smurf provides, and we are content.

    1. Re:Low power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing is ever truly wasted and in a few billion years the Great Reboot will make the suffering of yesterday and the happiness of today a moot point. Who or what will then care that a human ever screamed in torture or giggled in joy, much less other earth creatures? The only thing that matters is the current moment and how you make the best of it.

  6. If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by Drakino · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The low power chips are nice and all, but where is the CPU showing off Transmeta's true technology? All that code morphing stuff should enable a laptop to be made with a switch labeled "G4" or "x86".

    1. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      /me praises god that he didn't invest in Transmeta.

    2. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He has a good point.

    3. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I suspect that all that "code morphing" stuff that the transmeta processors do is "hype". It probably started out as a way to avoid Intel infringement ("it's not an x86 chip, it has its own instructions and we have a run-time converter, seriously your honor"). Everyone else grabbed and ran with it thinking you could make every chip from strongarm to G4 to MIPS with it, when in reality the chips are all still hard coded in the fab to be x86.

      Of course, this is Slashdot, where to suggest something like this about Transmeta means I'm a troll. So be it.

    4. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by stripes · · Score: 3, Insightful
      All that code morphing stuff should enable a laptop to be made with a switch labeled "G4" or "x86"

      The TM CPUs have a lot of x86 like functionality wired into them. Sure they don't execute x86 code, but they do have x86 style MMUs, not PowerPC ones. They do set their condition flags based on when an x86 would, not a PowerPC. The 40 or so GP registers they have is plenty to try to emulate a CPU that only has 4 or so, but not so good for CPUs that really have 16 or 32 (you need to use some registers for the morphing code, some to hold state that may not come to pass, some...).

      The current Transmeta chips are not x86 CPUs, but they emulate x86 CPUs far far better then they can emulate any other CPU. This could be addressed by future TM CPUs, but only by adding things that mostly wouldn't be of use to them while being an x86, so if x86 is where 95+% of the market is, it may make sense to not even make the TM CPUs 6% more complex... let alone the morphing software 100% more complex.

    5. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Linus knows the i386 architecture inside out and backwards, better than anyone else his age. Transmeta needed to emulate the i386 in the Crusoe VLIW chip, and hired Linus to make it work.

      The Crusoe wasn't Linus' vision, he was hired to make it work. If it fails or not on the market is not his problem.

      He won't have trouble finding a Linux-friendly job if Transmeta dies.

    6. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 1

      indeed..

      a PCI card with a crusoe and some motorola 68k code morphing.. and some PPC morphing.. and some x86 morphing.. etc etc would make a FANTASTIC emulation platform tho'

      brings to mind the Emplant upgrades for Amiga's..

    7. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by AxelTorvalds · · Score: 1
      If it were possible, they would be doing it or already have it done. They aren't exactly selling millions of those chips and there are companies who want sparcs, powerpcs, arms, etc.. There is a fair amount of x86 specific in the hardware.

      You know their stockholders are suing them? I've resported it several times here on the dot, there are at least 3 class actions against them for overselling their products. It's not really geek news for a company to be sued by their shareholders but in their case it's looking like at least one and possibly 2 of the suits might result in wins against TMTA.

    8. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The reason transmeta uses codemorphing is not so that they can have one processor with multiple instruction set architectures, but so that they can run x86 at a reasonable speed on a VLIW core. As other replies have noted, the hardware in the Crusoe is designed specifically to emulate Intel.

      Most modern processors are what are called superscalar processors. They execute several instructions in parallel as long as the result will be the same as if they were executed in order. This doesn't sound all that complicated, but to be done well requires alot of hardware, which in turn requires alot of power.

      The Crusoe on the otherhand is a VLIW processor. VLIW processors also execute several instructions at once (four, in the Crusoe's case), but the compiler must specify the instructions. This makes for a relatively simply CPU, since no extra hardware is needed to figure out which instructions to execute, and it also means that the processor doesn't need all that much power.

      The problem with emulating x86 code on a VLIW chip is this: x86 expects one instruction to execute at a time, and to do this with a VLIW chip wastes 3 of the 4 execution units. That's where the code morphing software comes in. Essentially code morphing does in software what the superscalar machines do in hardware, it looks for places in the code where multiple instructions can be executed at once, and when it finds them it puts them in a VLIW instruction word which will be executed next time the compiler gets to that chunk of code.

      So code morphing is really there to improve performance and lower power consumption.

    9. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by ghjm · · Score: 2

      Well, yes, that makes sense from a business perspective. Undoubtedly x86 is where the money is, for now and for a while to come. Transmeta is correct to play mostly in the x86 space.

      So what's the point of code morphing?

      I mean, if they're just going to be a low-power x86 clone, surely the resources (engineering, space on the die, whatever) taken up by code morphing could be put to better use as...nothing. Just make an x86-only design. AMD did, and theirs is better. Presumably because they focused all their effort on making a low-power x86, and not on code morphing.

      Seriously. Either develop some useful capability from the code morphing tech, or abandon it.

      -Graham

    10. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by leuk_he · · Score: 1

      x86, so if x86 is where 95+% of the market is, it may make sense to not even make the TM CPUs 6% more complex... let alone the morphing software 100% more complex.

      Going for the biggest market share is not always the point. It is like saying 90% of word for windows is not used, let's cut 90% of word for windows, making it 100% faster etc etc. However not the same 10% is used by everyone.

      Same would go for a powerpcemulater. Wouldn't it be great if you could run mac software at the flick of a switch? I agree, for the performance some more silicon may have to beadded. But if you don't optimize very much at the start you wouldn't need that much extra.

    11. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by stripes · · Score: 2
      Wouldn't it be great if you could run mac software at the flick of a switch? I agree, for the performance some more silicon may have to beadded. But if you don't optimize very much at the start you wouldn't need that much extra.

      Still makes the software design (code morpher, and BIOS) about 100% more complex. Maybe only about 50% more complex since they did a Java version. It would also help hilight it's slowness "Can't even keep up with a dead 300Mhz Mac", and "Jack of all trades, Master of none" are not headlines they need.

      As for running Mac software, it is great to be able to run it at the flick of a switch (or at least the opening of a lid), but it's great to actually be able to not see OSX draw each and every pixel. Really, if the existing TM hardware were asked to emulate a PowerPC it wouldn't be able to hold more then one CPU state in it's registers, so no real speculatave execution, making it's write guards useless, and it's fast shadow save and restore instructions useless as well. Cutting off whole sections of the functionality, and most of the opertunity to actually emulate a CPU better then CPUs not designed to do emulation.

      Let me repeat that part, because of the differences between it's target system and what it is trying to do pretty much everything put into the TM hardware to help it emulate a CPU is worthless. For speed you would be better off doing the emulator on a P4, or a recent Alpha.

      Going for the biggest market share is not always the point. It is like saying 90% of word for windows is not used, let's cut 90% of word for windows, making it 100% faster etc etc. However not the same 10% is used by everyone.

      But you are not doing a faster subset of the PowerPC here, you are doing a whole PowerPC that is slower then the existing embeded PPC designs, costs more, uses more power, and has fewer integrated parts. The only advantage to your proposed slow PPC is it is also a slow x86 and uses very little power for an x86.

      Plus pretty much only Apple can make a computer run Mac OS (this is a lot less true with OS X around), and I doubt they would try to provide a very slow laptop that can run PC software faster then Mac software. They would either see it as a bridge away from the Mac, or as an amusing diversion almost nobody would buy. As cool as the iBook is, I wouldn't pay more then $500 for a 300Mhz one given what they currently have on the market for $875! No, I won't even buy it for $500, I wouldn't hesitate at $200 though.





      P.S. yes the 300Mhz number is pretty made up, it is around half what people say the x86 feels like. The real number could be a lot lower, but I doubt it will be a lot higher. In fact if Apple is right, it is a lot lower even if they make it feel like a 500Mhz x86 -- but I think they are wrong about the G3 being much faster per Mhz. They are right about the G4 for some tasks though.

    12. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by stripes · · Score: 2
      So what's the point of code morphing?

      Well for one thing it dances around a lot of Intel's and AMD's patents.

      I mean, if they're just going to be a low-power x86 clone, surely the resources (engineering, space on the die, whatever) taken up by code morphing could be put to better use as...nothing. Just make an x86-only design. AMD did, and theirs is better.

      Maybe, but AMD also spent a lot more on research. Money TM didn't have. AMD's also came out a while after TM's CPU.

      Personally I think TM blew it with their first CPU that didn't run 16bit code very quickly at all, and lost a ton of time doing the second CPU which did run 16 and 32 bit code fairly well. If they had payed more attention to 16 bit code they may have brought out the TM CPUs quickly enough that they didn't seem so slow. Remember everyone else's CPUs were getting faster. Especally right then, AMD and Intel had just finished the race for 1Ghz, six to eight months earlyer and the TM CPU would have be every bit as fast as the notebook CPUs that were out.

      Of corse that's just a thery, and I have no real evidence.

      Seriously. Either develop some useful capability from the code morphing tech, or abandon it.

      Who says they havn't? It did give them a faster time to market, they had a number of bugs in their CPUs that they coded around in the morphing engine (instruction combos that should work, but didn't, the morpher was change to not pair them).

      The code morphing tech's useful capability may well be that TM actually has something on the market, and hasn't been sued by all the other x86 makers for patent infringment. That may not save TM from being an "also ran", but it doesn't make code morphing a bad idea.

      (Also just because TM aimed at low power doesn't mean that's the only place code morphing can be used -- it's not that diffrent from microcoded CPUs, or trace scheduling. With diffrent goals it may be useful to make fast CPUs, or just plain not)

      TM had a lot of obsticles, far more then most CPUs have. Definitly more then the one CPU I designed (in a class, not the real world). Being crushed by them doesn't mean all their choices were bad.

    13. Re:If only Transmeta would release a different CPU by Rasta+Prefect · · Score: 2


      This would require quite a bit more effort. Soldering a PPC onto an Intel motherboard (Even assuming that you could) does does not an Apple make.

      --
      Why?
  7. WinCE only for StrongARM? by class_A · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Taken from webpage:
    "...industry standard x86 architecture, the VIA Eden Embedded System Platform is fully compatible with Microsoft Windows XP and a full range of Embedded Windows, Windows CE..."

    I thought WinCE/PocketPC was now only built for the StrongARM processor, or am I missing something?

    Personally, I don't see low power as being Transmeta's primary selling point. I am much more interested in their code morphing software. I don't see where VIA's solution fits in. If you want a low power consumption PC type device, then are we still talking about an "embedded" device?

    1. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by Webmonger · · Score: 2

      Code morphing is cool and all, but what's it for if it isn't power savings? Isn't that their main selling point?

      And can't they think bigger than that? Wouldn't it be cool to have a machine that could run every platform from Windows XP to MAME to Commodore BASIC to PDP-11 Unix? Wouldn't that be a more fitting use of their tech? Sure, nobody would buy it, but wouldn't it be cooler?

    2. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I am much more interested in their code morphing software"

      I'm interested in why we haven't seen it?
      Vapoooooooooor

    3. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by thing12 · · Score: 1

      Actually CE was designed for a range of processors that meet a certain spec. StrongARM is just one, there's also the Hitachi SH3.

    4. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by class_A · · Score: 1

      I take your point, but I'm not actually interested in its "coolness" factor. I agree, coolness is nice for us geeks, but it doesn't put food on the table. My interest in it is from a potential cost or time saving viewpoint.

      There are low and lower power computing solutions out there which have the horsepower to perform. But these systems are tailored to a specific need; you need the right tool to do the right job. If the job changes slightly, then your system may not perform as well as it used to and a new design may be better suited.

      VIA have taken the approach of using an x86 based platform. However, isn't this more of a one size fits all policy? In some circumstances, I would prefer to have a system with something like a Transmeta CPU, allowing me to can change and refine the tool I have chosen for the job in hand.

      Sometimes, the x86 way of doing things may be appropriate. On other occasions, perhaps a different architechture may be more suited. Wouldn't it be great to have a CPU which could adapt and change itself according to the needs of the task it was performing, almost like a programmable ASIC?

      I just feel that VIA's solution is more of the same. It looks great for use situations where you want a PC but with low power (eg. Home Entertainment), but it doesn't break enough new ground for me.

      Unfortunatley, it looks like it's all we'll be getting for the time being. Transmeta aren't saying much at the moment about code morphing other architectures (eg. POWER/PPC) on their CPU's.

    5. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by dybvandal · · Score: 1

      i think the SH3's are no longer supported but the x86 platform has to .. since there are crusoe based webpads running winCe (look at the FIC thingi)

    6. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by zulux · · Score: 2

      Actually CE was designed for a range of processors

      Microsoft is pusing all it's vendors to use StrongARM. The latest develement version of CE, is only StrongARM.

      NT was also able to run on Alpha et al, but we all know how long that lasted. NT running on an Alpha was kinga like a dancing bear - you diden't judge it by how well it was dancing, it's just was amazing that it was a bear doing the dancing.

      NT on an Alpha was just a waste of a good Alpha.

      --

      Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

    7. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by class_A · · Score: 1

      I know, I think it ran on MIPS as well?

      I'm just trying to find out whether its current incarnation (Win CE 4/PocketPC 2001) supports anything other than StrongARM. I seem to remember Microsoft announcing it was dropping support for other platforms. Anyhow, I don't remember it ever running on x86...

    8. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, CE is still being developed for a wide range of processors, but the the latest versions of the PocketApps (ie: PocketWord and other apps I dont' know why anyone would want on a PDA) are
      currently only for ARM.

    9. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by michael.creasy · · Score: 2

      Yes, WinCE != PocketPC. PocketPC uses WinCE and made the decision to only support one architecture, but WindowsCE is built for ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, SH and x86 - you can find a full list of the support processors here

    10. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by stripes · · Score: 2
      Wouldn't it be cool to have a machine that could run every platform from Windows XP to MAME to Commodore BASIC to PDP-11 Unix?

      They buy them all the time. They buy "PC Compatibles". They can run Windows, Unix, C=64 emulators, MAME, and some fine PDP-11 emulators which run faster then the real PDPs.

      You really only need to buy CPUs designed to emulate other CPUs to try to emulate current-ish platforms. If you are interested in anything older then about 3 turns of the crank for Moore's "Law" a normal CPU will be fine (well unless you want to emulate historic supercomputers, then you may need 5 turns, or to emulate a mainframe then you may need something with lots of I/O...unless it is even older).

    11. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by stripes · · Score: 1
      PocketApps (ie: PocketWord and other apps I dont' know why anyone would want on a PDA)

      Well PocketWord may not be what you want to take notes with, and you may not want to write a report on a PDA, but it's pretty good for reading MS Office documents, which you may want to do on a PDA. Well not want, so much as having other people send you documents in rather then something nice like PostScript, DVI (see TeX), or even PDF, and the documents may contain things you need to know, and the PDA may be a good place to keep them, and you may want to refer to them...

      Of corse the amazing size of some Word files makes it easy to explain why WinCE machines sell big CF cards. I have had a single page all text document (1 or 2 fonts, no logos, normal font size) take up over 1M for no apparent reason.

    12. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by thing12 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I know, I think it ran on MIPS as well? ... Anyhow, I don't remember it ever running on x86...

      Actually it runs on 12 processor architectures, including x86 and MIPS.

      Pocket PC is kind of a separate beast from Windows CE. It's basically CE plus a bunch of extensions that make it fit the needs of PDA users better. It may very well only be available for StrongARM.

    13. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by thing12 · · Score: 1
      I don't buy it, you must be thinking of Pocket PC and not CE as a whole.

      NT on an Alpha was just a waste of a good Alpha.

      Kinda like NT on the PowerPC. Boxes that could have been perfectly good Macs, but running Windows instead. A friend of mine bought one a while back, it came with NT preinstalled on the harddrive. We wiped it almost immediately and installed LinuxPPC.

    14. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by Webmonger · · Score: 2

      See, this is the thing: I'm having a lot of trouble envioning circumstances where Code Morphing is actually good for something.

      You can't clone Macs, so it's not useful for budget Mac laptops. Maybe you could use it to run in some vmware-like state so you could run Mac apps on a PC, but that's rarely needed. Most mainstream apps for Mac are also available on PC. The other way around is not the case, but we can't do Mac clones.

      And you can't simulate a Geforce3, since bandwidth's the most important part.

      I guess if you're running Java or C#, it could provide a "native implementation". . .

    15. Re:WinCE only for StrongARM? by lordkiwi · · Score: 1

      pocket pc 2002 is still running CE v3

  8. Take it from the source by pclinger · · Score: 2

    I'd wait before I heard an independent review from someone rather than going off of the hype from a company. I find that independent sources give you the real details on if something truly is a better product.

    --
    /. editors made it impossible to link to file:///c:/con/con in my sig. Please just type it in
  9. Transmeta, where? by ZaneMcAuley · · Score: 1

    What devices is the Transmeta chips used in today or planning to be used? Just curious.

    --
    ----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
    1. Re:Transmeta, where? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      go look it up yourself ...........they are used all over the place. Sony makes some cool laptop type devices that utilize this stuff.

  10. TMTA:RIP by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 5, Informative
    Its fairly obvious at this point that there is little to no commercial support for the Transmeta product line.

    Power consumption and heat dissipation are issues to consumers and manufacturers, but clearly not enough to warrant employing a lower performance architecture at this point. Added to which, it appears that competitors were capable of rolling out competing technology far too quickly - Transmeta never hada chance to get support.

    At this point it seems that the smartest thing Transmeta can do is start shopping its assets around to possible suitors.

  11. So what is Transmeta for, anyway? by DaveWood · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm hoping the more clever watchers of the semiconductor industry can enlighten me on this. As far as I can tell, Transmeta has been an expensive and overhyped flop.

    They came out with low power consumption CPUs that, while cool, aren't THAT cool, really (to the point where Intel and AMD immediately responded with conventional laptop CPUs that were in the same spec ballpark), and weren't that fast, either. In fact, when you sit down with them, they're quite slow for the $$$. And that was they debuted - let alone now, in Q1 2002. Their design involved doing IA emulation right above the silicon, which sounds wacky to me; fine, advances in runtime optimization lately are quite interesting (hotspot) but it doesn't sprout wings and fly, and I can't see how we could ever expect it to.

    Then we have the fact that virtually no one sells transmeta-based products, and some significant percentage of the few companies that said they would, have since backed out of the deal (which screams trouble with the product).

    Maybe I'm just too cynical. Yes, everybody loves them because they're competing with Intel and they're a patron of Linux. Please, tell me why I'm wrong about this. I'd love to be convinced their killer app is right around the corner.

    If I'm right, though, they should call it a day, shut down now and return whatever money they have left to their investors...

    --
    We're on the road to Tycho.
    1. Re:So what is Transmeta for, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Poor Linus Torvalds, who will
      take him now? Maybe there's
      a job for him in redmond.
      I hear they are hiring dishwashers
      at the MicroSoft campus cafeteria. With
      some retraining, he would make a great
      dishwasher/floor_scrubber.

      Yes, Transmeta should close and return
      all their asset to their clueless
      investors. And VAlinux should really do
      the same.

    2. Re:So what is Transmeta for, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bill? Is that you?
      You told me you would stop doing this.
      It's embarrassing to the company.
      We set up that "special" slashdot for you
      so you could troll all you wanted.
      Please, don't make this hard for everyone.
      Why dont you come down to the rec room and play with those new Janet Reno dartboards we got you.
      See you later,
      MS Sec. #52523

    3. Re:So what is Transmeta for, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > In fact, when you sit down with them, they're
      > quite slow for the $$$.

      > Maybe I'm just too cynical. Yes, everybody loves
      > them because they're competing with Intel and
      > they're a patron of Linux. Please, tell me why I'm
      > wrong about this. I'd love to be convinced their
      > killer app is right around the corner.

      Since Linux 2.4 got much better in the SMP arena, a fanless mobo with 16 TMTA 5800 chips would make a fantastic workstation...even server. I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

      Quite frankly, this may the the only chance for Transmeta. From what I gather, people *want* to try their CPU's, but need the according bang to go with it. A multi-processor board would take care nicely of that and work for both the consumer and Transmeta (and hopefully the environment/your energy-bill as well). So far the only devices I've seen with Crusoe's are sub-notebooks...as in not-real-computers. They won't sell. An 16-SMP board in a desktop would.

    4. Re:So what is Transmeta for, anyway? by Digicaf · · Score: 1

      I would have to agree. Transmeta developed chips years ago for a market that didn't exist, and still doesn't. The Crusoe (sp) was originally developed to fill the _Ultra-low-power-but-still-full-featured_ niche that was being researched for handheld PC's.

      The problem is that Handheld PC's never happened. There are essentially three markets for computers right now: Server, Desktop, and embedded, with Crusoe hoping to land in the region between the latter two.

      What it boils down to is this:
      Unfortunately for Transmeta, people were never willing to shell out for a hybrid device that looks like a handheld, but works like a PC. People would much rather spend a few extra bucks and get a slightly bigger and heavier battery to run a much faster processor, or just take the plung and get an embedded device. They gambled and lost, or at least they haven't won yet.

      Maybe they will have a market in a few years, when handheld units require more processor than a Strongarm\Mips can provide.

    5. Re:So what is Transmeta for, anyway? by DaveWood · · Score: 2

      I wonder about this. Especially because someone raised intriguing speculation of adapting TM's code morphing technology to parallel processing in some kind of "original" way. AFAIK the problem with this is always bandwidth. When you start stacking up CPUs returns diminish pretty fast. Some problems adapt quite well to being broken apart into little pieces than can be executed simultaneously. Others are utterly resistant to it. For general purpose computing (i.e. desktop), I expect to continue to see very little parallelism barring a fundamental advance either in architecture or software design, so... for the next 5-10 years at least, I doubt it.

      --
      We're on the road to Tycho.
    6. Re:So what is Transmeta for, anyway? by DaveWood · · Score: 2

      Of course, if your point is that they could go after the _server_ market, which _does_ benefit from parallelism quite a bit, then hey, I agree in principle - but then we still have the problems of other CPUs on that market being faster/cheaper/practically lower power... and all of the established players... &c &c ;>

      --
      We're on the road to Tycho.
    7. Re:So what is Transmeta for, anyway? by Thatman311 · · Score: 0

      The one that is coming to the market from several OEM's is called the TabletPC. It was designed by MS but produced by companies like Acer (there are 2 others I think but can't remember their name). Unfortunally for Transmeta....they are using the PIII M chips instead of the Crusoe. The Crusoe is just tooooo slow.

      --
      Silly Rabbit...Sig's are for kids.
    8. Re:So what is Transmeta for, anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TabletPCs have been around forever and they've never sold worth squat. The only reason that people take them moderately seriously outside of a few verticals is that Bill Gates loves the idea and the OEMs need to pay him lipservice.

  12. Speaking of laptop power savings: LED backlights? by timothy · · Score: 3, Offtopic

    I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable than me can shed light (ha ha) on the possibilities for white-LED backlights in laptops.

    Certain high-end digital cameras (like the newest Nikon SLRs) have white LED backlights for their LCD displays. White LED prices are dropping (USD7.88 for a nice little waterproof, floating flashlight at Walmart :) !), and power consumption on white LEDs is ridiculously low. As I understand it, the backlight is the biggest draw in a lot of laptops, especially turned up bright.

    So why don't we see some low-power LED-light screens? I'd pay $200 more easily for my next laptop if it got (for instance) 50% more battery life.

    What's stopping those? Considering that there are now several approaches (AMD, Intel, Transmeta and now VIA) to saving power on laptop processors, what about the other powerhogs? :)

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  13. Where does the "much better performance" come from by vlad_petric · · Score: 2, Interesting
    There is no indication of the actual performance of the Eden processor (i.e., results from real benchmarks ) on the page, only the halucinogenic Highest performance x86 embedded processor (trust the salesman!).

    Moreover, there are some other oddities in the description, like the Integrated 192KB internal L1/L2 cache (well ... what's the size of L1 ? )

    The Raven.

    --

    The Raven

  14. Based on Cyrix core? by iconian · · Score: 1

    Is this chip based on the Cyrix processor core? If so, did they improved the Floating Point Unit? Remember Cyrix's Pentium-socket compatible chips had terrible FPUs, typically less than 1/2 their P-rating. I know most of you will say why would I care about FPU performance on a portable system, but I'd like to be able to Counter-Strike on my laptop occasionally.

    1. Re:Based on Cyrix core? by Hoser+McMoose · · Score: 1

      All of VIA's processors, including the VIA Cyrix III actually have absolutely nothing to do with Cyrix other then the name. They're all based off of various revisions of the IDT/Centaur core, originally called the "Winchip".

      Now, the downside here is that the old Winchip core was about the only socket 7 processor that had a WEAKER floating point unit then the Cyrix chips did (Cyrix weren't terribly bad, usually about on-par with the Pentiums by clock speed, though not by PR rating... mind you, the Pentium had a rather poor FPU to begin with).

      Anyway, I don't know if VIA plans on improving the performance of the FPU on their "Eden" chip or not. I know that they're planning on improving the FPU for their next generation of "Cyrix" labeled desktop chips. Either way, this isn't exactly going to be a top-notch gaming system by any stretch. For users looking for laptops with FPU power AND low power consumption, one of the Ultra Low Voltage PIII's is probably your best bet.

  15. What's with this Eden name anyway? by zensonic · · Score: 2
    • Not allowed by humans?
    • Our processor knows good from evil?
    • Our processor makes you want to be somewhere exotic?

    Anybody know what/if the markting people had any ideas with the name?
    --
    Thomas S. Iversen
    1. Re:What's with this Eden name anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Transmeta's chip is called the Crusoe; Robinson Crusoe is a book about a man who gets marooned on a paradise of a deserted island...? Think, man.

    2. Re:What's with this Eden name anyway? by zensonic · · Score: 2

      Think, man.

      Are you crazy? Tried that once (to think that is). Made me feel sick, so I never got the habbit :)

      Seriously, thanks for the answer, made sense. Merry christmas.

      --
      Thomas S. Iversen
    3. Re:What's with this Eden name anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Anybody know what/if the markting people had any ideas with the name?

      The people who design Via's new processors are the same people at Centaur (I think they designed the WinChip or whatever it's called). Other C3 chip cores were codenamed Ezra and Samuel. The designers, in an interview, admitted they named their cores after words from the Bible. I think this had something to do with them being Texans or something.

  16. You asked for it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm glad I don't have a beowulf cluster of Transmetas.

  17. wow by Broken+Bottle · · Score: 1

    Does anyone get the feeling that Transmeta massively underestimated their competition? Ever since Caruso was announced, I get the feeling that almost every other chip maker out there was like "Lower power? Bid deal, we could do that if we wanted to..." And then they all did. Transmeta went into a market that was pretty open when they annouunced and then everybody else seems to have just piled on at will, but they don't have the disadvantage of being a totally unknown manufacturer to contend with... I kinda feel bad for Transmeta. Anyone want to start a pool and guess who buys them?

    Chris

  18. no DDR ram though by nzhavok · · Score: 1

    the integrated north-bridge only allows for PC133 ram and theres no DDR option. Personally I'd be a bit wary of buying anything that still uses PC133 but I guess if it's being used in embedded devices it might not be as much of a problem.

    --

    He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
    1. Re:no DDR ram though by dybvandal · · Score: 1

      actually DDR ram uses less power .. so this is a major draw back for a low power architecture but it also shows there is room for improvement and that quite easily since VIA does have the know how to do DDR support

  19. x86 at 10W?? by LazyDawg · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    That's getting pretty close to G4 level! Just another 5 to go!

    How come a processor that's about half the speed uses twice the power, at best? 65 watts for an intel P4 chip is insanity.

    --
    "Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
    1. Re:x86 at 10W?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mhz does not always equal speed you know!
      Anyway the reason why the P4 and AMD CPUs in general have so big consumptions isnt that due to the fact that a high voltage helps on the clockrate? I could have been reading www.hardocp.com too much though.

      mvh
      Peden

    2. Re:x86 at 10W?? by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 1

      nope, it's due to the HIGH transistor count, 45 million transistors switching generates a lot of heat..

      the G4e OTOH, has about 10.5 Million transistors...

    3. Re:x86 at 10W?? by LazyDawg · · Score: 2

      Even the transistors used to draw Mickey Mouse on the die? What are all those transistors used for? Is there supposed to be some one-to-n correlation between "transistor" and "computing element" in Intel marketing?

      --
      "Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
    4. Re:x86 at 10W?? by sithlord2 · · Score: 1



      The G4 has less tranistors because it's a RISC processor (wich has fewer instructions -> less transistors).

      Intel x86 series are CISC processors (more instructions -> more transistors).

      --
      ...You are over-qualified and under-paid. If we give you a raise, we will break the cosmic balance of the universe.
    5. Re:x86 at 10W?? by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 1

      the CISC/RISC line has been blurred some some time now, since the P6 (Pentium Pro) and it's decendents are basically RISC excution cores with a cisc translation frontend...

  20. Talk about heat generation by zerofoo · · Score: 1

    You're right, they (transmeta chips) generate a decent amount of heat.

    I saw a demo of a dense formfactor web server...like 10 transmeta based cards in a 4 RU chassis, at the PcExpo at the Javits center in NY.

    Whoa! That sucker blew out some heat! I could have made toast with that thing....and it seemed to make as much heat as Pentium III card based solutions i've seen. Do transmeta based processors generate as much heat as a Pentium III processor?

    -ted

    1. Re:Talk about heat generation by tzanger · · Score: 2

      So you're saying that ten transmeta processors put out as much heat as a single P3 card solution? What exactly is the problem?

    2. Re:Talk about heat generation by khuber · · Score: 1

      >So you're saying that ten transmeta processors put
      >out as much heat as a single P3 card solution? What >exactly is the problem?

      I don't think that's what he meant. He was
      comparing Transmeta cards to Pentium cards.

      -Kevin

  21. Transmeta isn't a Total Failure by nemesisj · · Score: 2

    Transmeta may end up being a business failure, but they will have achieved what they set out to do: delivering low power consuming chips to consumers. The chips just might just might not end up being supplied by Transmeta.

    All in all, we the consumers win. It's doubtful Intel or AMD would have ever considered low power chips had it not been for Transmeta.

    --

    $45 per U Colocation Special
    1. Re:Transmeta isn't a Total Failure by Hoser+McMoose · · Score: 1

      Well that's obviously not 100% true, Intel had special low-powered "mobile" processor lines well before Crusoe was ever released. I think they started producing special low-powered chip for notebooks somewhere fairly early in the Pentium line, or perhaps even earlier. Transmeta might have given them a bit of a push though, since it was only after the Crusoe started getting some attention then Intel brought out chips like their "Ultra Low Voltage" PIII on top of their regular mobile PIIIs and Celerons.

      I think for the most part the push for lower powered chips came as a direct result of the desktop chips requiring more power. Most Pentiums were in the 10-20W range to begin with, and 486 consumed less power still. It wasn't until the PII came out that Intel had a desktop processor that was pumping out over 30W worth of heat that low powered chips really became a requirement.

      Transmeta may have managed to shift a lot of the focus of things towards power consumption, but they did so only because they had no other selling point of the processor. Originally the hype was that they were going to have industry-leading performance, but when it became painfully obvious that this wasn't going to happen, they turned to the whole low-power thing.

    2. Re:Transmeta isn't a Total Failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      THat is too bad for linus. he works for transmeta

  22. Re:Speaking of laptop power savings: LED backlight by bobdylan · · Score: 0

    So why don't we see some low-power LED-light screens?

    Because they look crappy?

  23. Re:Speaking of laptop power savings: LED backlight by stripes · · Score: 2
    Because they look crappy?

    They look fine on my PS100, and D30. Nice even light, and decently bright (the PS100 can be seen in fairly bright sunlight, the D30 can't though), and no strong color casts. They seem to work decently in low and high temperatures (the iPod backlight, or maybe LCD doesn't seem to work so well in the cold, and I think it has a LED backlight).

    I would believe "you can't make them big enough", or "can't make 'em big and cheep", or even "they have been using them for 14 months!", but I'm not buying "they look crappy".

  24. Re:Speaking of laptop power savings: LED backlight by Howie · · Score: 1

    Saving power is a relative thing. I have a tosh laptop with a mobile pentium III and GeForce2Go (i.e. theoretically 'laptop' parts) that puts out enough heat that the manual strongly recommends not putting the thing on your lap! I get the impression that the screen is not really such a huge proportion of the power requirements in modern laptops.

    --
    "don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
  25. Re:Speaking of laptop power savings: LED backlight by denzo · · Score: 1
    Because they look crappy?
    timothy is talking about using white LEDs as a backlight, not of a screen made up of white LEDs. Your LCD screens will look exactly the same, only with a difference in the brightness adjustment. One laptop I've used was very dim even at the highest brightness, I guess that's to guarantee the battery life... but is hardly a solution to me when I have to turn off all the lights in the room and squint at the screen. I myself would like to see white LEDs utilized for backlights.
  26. Surprised? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The bums on Pacific Street in Santa Cruz have more revenue than Transmeta.

    Transmeta was all vaporware. Their processors ended up to be a super-hyped low-power, no-performance Geode / ARM wanna-be.

    Where do you want to go today?

  27. Crusoe 6 Watts? by derwagner · · Score: 2, Informative

    Isn't Crusoe below 1 Watt when it's idle, and at 6 Watts at full load?
    Very stupid comparison.

    1. Re:Crusoe 6 Watts? by Hoser+McMoose · · Score: 1

      I don't see what's so bad about the comparison? Idle power for all modern mobile chips is under 1W, while the Eden and the Crusoe are likely to have typical power use of about 6W. The Crusoe has a slight advantage in that it has a built-in memory controller, so you don't need to add in any extra power for that component like you do on the Eden, but overall the two systems (as well as the Ultra Low Voltage PIII) are going to be in the same general power consumption range. Once you figure in the power requirements of the display and hard drive as well as video, the difference between these chips in terms of power consumption is likely to amount to nothing more then noise.

      Where the real difference occurs is price and performance. Intel's ULV PIII, even at fairly slow clock speeds, has the others beat pretty much hands down in terms of performance, no question at all. On the other hand, these are also rather pricy chips. The thing that makes these VIA chips exciting is that they're dirt-cheap and work with the same sort of components that mobile PIIIs do. The problem for Transmeta is that their chips are relatively expensive and also very slow, making them an all around bad choice for the most part.

  28. Great. But not REALLY what we need... by Zzootnik · · Score: 1

    It's fantastic that all of our portable devices are using less and less power with each new generation of 'em...but until we can suck power out of the ambient environment, we still need more R&D in that other area...

    Batteries.

    Sorry, but even with all the new Titanium rabbits, and NiMH options and what not...we still haven't been able to cram more than a few measly hours into the space of a laptop battery...and that's WITH the newest hardware options...

    Someone needs to found "ShipStone"...

    --
    Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
  29. Running Text Mode Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have always wondered that if we turn off harddisk and boot text mode Linux from a floppy, will this "substantially" prolong the battery life?

    1. Re:Running Text Mode Linux by Sj0 · · Score: 1

      Why not use QNX instead? The 1.44 meg demo has a helluva lot of stuff in there, and you don't have to use text mode (is vesa svga very power consuming?)
      That's get.qnx.com

      --
      It's been a long time.
  30. Is this vaporware? by hirschma · · Score: 1

    Can you actually buy this stuff? I searched the site and can't find any vendors.

  31. Re:Speaking of laptop power savings: LED backlight by Salamander · · Score: 3, Interesting
    So why don't we see some low-power LED-light screens?

    Very simply, because LEDs aren't powerful enough. They might seem pretty bright when viewed directly, but when you're putting that light through a lossy backlight assembly onto the relatively large area of a laptop screen, and hoping that the result is sufficient to counteract ambient glare, you get a different impression. Frontlights are even worse.

    Some vendors have tried replacing standard CCFLs with LEDs in PDA applications, where the screen size is smaller, and even there it has led to "customer acceptance issues". Translation: customers hated it. For the larger screens that laptops use, current-generation LED technology doesn't even merit serious consideration. With any luck, somebody will earn a Nobel prize figuring out how to make an ultra-bright LED that can compete with CCFL, but I wouldn't count on it.

    --
    Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
  32. Re:Where does the "much better performance" come f by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the winchip arcitecture (ie what is the basis for via/CYRIX) has a combi L1/L2 cache

  33. Re:Speaking of laptop power savings: LED backlight by eracerblue · · Score: 1

    because cool OLEDs are comming.... don't-cha-know? oh... i guess you should know... since you posted this article back in June.

    OLEDs for laptops are a little ways off tho me thinks... a year or two at best. You'll see many ~2" full color OLEDs in Japan's iMode phones within a year. I seem to recall that IBM had a rather large working prototype, but I can't seem to find it anymore. Here's some info on their smaller ones tho.

  34. Built with hallucinogenic smoke... by leonbrooks · · Score: 1
    ...instead of the normal acrid stuff. Why not let some out and see?

    This post comes with no warranty. Do not try this at home. Or anywhere else.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  35. Following the C3 line by Rogain · · Score: 1

    That is a bad line, don't join that conga line, the music sucks, and goes no-where fast. Way back when, I got suckered into buying one of their 733's, shit it sucks worse than my K6-2's!. Pure shit.

    --
    The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
  36. the difference being ... by timothy · · Score: 1

    that OLEDs are still a while out as far as I've read, while white LEDs are currently being used as backlights for LCD screens, albeit small ones only.

    OLEDS will be cool, when they get here :)

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
    1. Re:the difference being ... by eracerblue · · Score: 1

      check it check it yo

      motorola is already using them
      (and i swear that Sanyo or someone will be releasing full-color phones shortly in Japan with 'em.)

      eMagin has beautiful dk's available. i want one!

      some talk from a year ago.

      do you like to dream?

      umm... soOOoo cool

    2. Re:the difference being ... by timothy · · Score: 1

      thanks for those links -- I spoke too soon. But LEDs are still IMO closer to direct application to laptop computers, despite the shortcomings other posters have pointed out wrt. brightness etc.

      More LEDs (especially of the very high-output varieties, brandnames are slipping my mind right now ... Lumilor? Lumilon? Lumilux?) I think would be able to math flourescents, and if it means slightly thicker notebook screens and an extra hundred or two dollars in initial hardware cost, I'll happily take that.

      And if it turns out to be OLEDs instead, no complaints from me!

      Tim

      --
      jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  37. Fujitsu... by Da+VinMan · · Score: 1

    just took 'Best of Show' for laptops at COMDEX for their Crusue based laptop. For about $1500 you can have Crusue based laptop today. If I were in the market for a laptop, I might just buy one.

    --
    Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
  38. That's what I meant. by zerofoo · · Score: 1

    Yes, that is exactly what I meant. I guess I have to spell out every little detail in future posts.

    -ted

  39. Cynical? by fm6 · · Score: 2
    Maybe I'm just too cynical. Yes, everybody loves them because they're competing with Intel and they're a patron of Linux. Please, tell me why I'm wrong about this. I'd love to be convinced their killer app is right around the corner.
    Two or so years ago, I would have called that opinion cynical. But now you're just describing how the market has actually responded to the TM chips. There's a painful absence of anything useful based on this technlogy. Just another idea that looked good on paper.
  40. Wrong chip by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You got the Cyrix III. The C3 is a new core. Low power, but much faster. Horrendous naming convention.