Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Transmeta Astro -- More Details

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the smallness dept.

chill writes "We've recently seen announcements, product launches and reviews from AMD and Intel on their new low power chipsets. Not to be left out, Transmeta has more details on their forthcoming Astro processor. Slashdot covered the Astro back at Comdex in November."

12 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. One of these days... by intermodal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    it will be feasable to build a home system with a transmeta chip without it being a pain in the ass to find or get ahold of one. My next system will be either an Athlon XP or a Crusoe/Astro. Which it will be will depend on a lot of things, but if its a pain in the ass to get, I'll just end up with the AMD.

    --
    In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
    1. Re:One of these days... by kfg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No, it isn't. Particularly for systems intended for basic use, such as, say, running vi and mutt, with the odd Nethack session thrown in, or even Win98 with basic productivity software.

      VIA chips are also a viable solution for these systems, and my next desktop system, literally, I'm going to be building it directly into the desktop itself, will probably rely on one of these low heat, low power consumption, chips.

      First figure out how much "power" you need, then get the chip that requires the least power for the least money. It's both the proper financial *and* engineering solution.

      KFG

    2. Re:One of these days... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      1) Create cool (literally) CPU.

      Most of the time I just use a browser, email client and xmms. I also ssh into school to run Mathematica. I don't need a CPU capable of frying eggs thank you very much. An Astro desktop system would be perfect for me.

      2) Refuse to sell to someone wanting to build their own desktop system based on your CPU.

      I just wan't a CPU and mobo damn it. Why is this so hard to understand. I already have all the other components. I'd be willing to pay $400 for the privilege of having no fans. For the love of god please take my money.

      Hmm, mabey they are having problems fabbing enough chips?

      3) Fire more employees

      I don't understand why they are ignoring the silent desktop market. Check out www.silentpcreview.com and www.hushterchnologies.net The market is there and it is growing. How much would you pay to get rid of the noise your computer makes?

      4) Profit!!!

  2. It slices it dices by bigmase521 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    but I wonder if it'll run Linux. If the performance is as good as thought to be, and the low-power consumption is really up to snuff, this chip could be in my new laptop. If Linus has any input, it's already Linux-ready. Let's just hope the rest of the freakin' hardware the OEM's use will be the same.

    --
    "I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin"
  3. What ever happened the to the code morphing? by HomerJ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember way back before they released anything, their major claim to fame so to speak was their code morphing tech where it would just emulate whatever cpu you needed. Making it maybe possible to do things like dualboot MacOSX and WindowsXP. They just decided to say the heck with all of that, and use it all to make low power x86 cpus(that don't look like they are selling too well based on the number of products using them)

    So where's my triple boot OSX/XP/Linux box running on a transmeta chip?

    1. Re:What ever happened the to the code morphing? by silvaran · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My understanding was the code morphing technology would convert IA code to the native transmeta chip's code, a bit like microinstructions. So it doesn't necessarily support any other architecture. But I could be wrong... nss

    2. Re:What ever happened the to the code morphing? by dhovis · · Score: 4, Interesting
      You are wrong.

      The idea of the code morphing is that any ISA could emulated. x86 is the only emulation that they focus on, but it should be able to emulate PPC, Alpha, MIPS, Z-80, you name it.

      --

      --
      The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.

  4. Re:Not to be a naysayer.. by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    but I have little faith in any third party entries in the CPU market at this point. Much like vid-cards, I the market only has enough room for a two horse race.

    (That's insightful? C'mon now.)

    Transmeta is going off in a different direction. Intel and AMD have gotten to be about trading massive power consumption for incremental performance increases. Now Intel is backpedalling because you just can't stick a high end P4 in a laptop (hence the Centrino). Transmeta is putting power consumption first, which is a different angle.

  5. Re:Not to be a naysayer.. by 4of12 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Transmeta is putting power consumption first, which is a different angle.

    People often speak of CPU power consumption in the same breath as laptops and it's certainly important.

    Despite the troubles of RLX and related companies (probably due to the general market downturn more than their specific product), the server market for low power chips will come back.

    At some point we'll probably see benchmarks on TPC/kW or Webstones/rack where Transmeta could make a dent.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  6. Re:Not to be a naysayer.. by fadeaway · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hey, no one ever said that he with the most ingenuity wins. We're dealing with what already is a cut-throat market. There's currently two competitors, one survives because half of the market doesn't trust the other. The other survives only by reducing costs by sacrificing stability and quality.

    Where does Transmeta fit in? That tiny demographic that's willing to pay the extra cash for lower voltage and longer battery life? How long do you think they'll honestly survive serving a nich market..? Unless they can secure a serious foothold in the market by achieving Intels brand recognition, or matching AMD's prices, they're as good as gone.

  7. Re:no, really, i need one by chill · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I saw this but considered the following...

    It is so thin and light because it doesn't have any drives -- no CD/DVD and no floppy. Fine, but if I want to do that, I'll get that Lindows laptop that has about the same specs (Via C3 processor @ 933 MHz) for 1/2 the price ($799 vs $1,499)

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  8. Re:Silent is good by torndorff · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually I have a Transmeta Crusoe chip in my Sony Picturebook running FreeBSD 4.7-STABLE and it performs amazingly well (neglecting the very slow hdd's used by Sony). I installed using only a USB floppy drive (thanks my Mac friends) and everything else has been done via 16-bit PCMCIA network adapters.

    I believe everything compiles as regular ole x86 and the code-morphing is done at a very low software layer. If you'll read more about the Transmeta chips you'll see that several megabytes of memory are consumed on booting.

    FreeBSD even has builtin sysctl settings for the LongRun processor/power management ;)

    Rock on FreeBSD.