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Chinese "Dragon" Chip On Sale

mrseigen writes "The processor that Chinese firms have been working on as a response to foreign equipment and software is now available for pre-order. The Inquirer did an article here, and the company website is here. The chip will supposedly ship with Midori Linux."

26 of 554 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder... by Sir+Haxalot · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Is Midori Linux available in English?

    --
    I have over 70 freaks, do you?
  2. Midori -- Stale Distro? by jalexand · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why would they ship with a linux distro that hasn't been updated in two years?

    1. Re:Midori -- Stale Distro? by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 4, Interesting
      they are using the Midori distro because of the support for written Chinese (not specific on the dialect)

      When dealing with the Chinese written language, dialect is more or less irrelevant. The only issue is whether to support 'traditional' or 'simplified' Chinese characters. In mainland China, simplified characters (introduced when the communists took control) is usually desired. In Taiwan and elsewhere, traditional characters are usually employed. When using Unicode, this is almost entirely a font issue. When using older doublebyte character sets, the appropriate encoding system must be supported. I am not absolutely certain, but I think Midori supports everything commonly used.

  3. China is enormous by buffer-overflowed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And will be an enormous economic force in years to come.

    If they reduce their reliance on foreign IP (or non-free foreign IP) as well as foreign hardware, this can only be good for China, and only be bad for us (Less money flow into the IT industry) unless they produce a higher quality product (thus improving the industry).

    However, in the short term, you know, MS won't make as much money, neither will Intel, and I'm sure a lot of /.ers are really happy about that.

    --
    The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
    1. Re:China is enormous by buffer-overflowed · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You oversimplify. But you are correct in too many ways for me to nitpick.

      A lot of factors have contributed to the $400 box, and Microsoft did so by arguably (and I say arguably only because this is /. and someone will argue with me) creating the PC market as it is now. AMD helped by giving Intel some real competition as well.

      All of the people who own PC's, MS, the marketing juggernaut pushed for that. One of the good things they did for the industry that few here recognize (either willingly or out of blind hatred). Anyone who remembers how expensive hardware was wayyy back in the day, knows this.

      The more demand, the cheaper the products can be produced and the more competition.

      --
      The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
    2. Re:China is enormous by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Low hardware prices occur because of competition between hardware vendors combined with technology allowing cheap production. Macintosh and SunSparc were not more expensive because of some defect in the software they used. They were more expensive because the hardware was proprietary.

      IBM deserve credit for making the IBM PC an open standard plus making PCs credible in a business setting. Once that decision was made and Intel, AMD, IBM, Seagate and others produced inexpensive parts that IBM PCs could leverage, cheap PCs were going to happen.

      The only area where it can be argued Microsoft helped (by later having a desktop monopoly) was to make it easier, and thus a little cheaper, for peripheral suppliers who only needed to target drivers for one platform (except, of course, Windows has never been very compatible with Windows).

  4. Re:namespace collision by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I think it is interesting that they stick a (TM) after Midori on the website. I would think the liquer or some other company would have long ago gained ownership of that (or it would at least be a freely usable word).

  5. My random observation by Bryan+Ischo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I spent a good deal of time in China a couple of years back. All I have to say is, the many people whom I met all over the country were honest and worked very hard, and I think that they deserve better living conditions than they currently have.

    Their government is slowly but surely making progress towards a more reasonable form, and I hope that news technology developments like this are harbingers of improvement in their economy and the lives of the Chinese people in general.

  6. Re:The case sticker!! by KReilly · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I would buy just for the sticker! Seriously though, they do have a way better naming scheme then intel and amd...
    It just sounds cool.
    "So Whats in your rig?"
    "A dragon.."

    If nothing else, we should see the sales in these shirts go up halfling

  7. Fire-Breathing Dragon Burns Americans and Tibetans by reporter · · Score: 3, Interesting
    For a country that is as backward as mainland China, possessing the ability to make a high-performance 32-bit pipelined microprocessor is a tad surprising. However, when you think of the intimate relationship between Taiwan and mainland China, you realize that the technology for the Dragon microprocessor came from Taiwan. So, things are not that surprising.

    Consider the following.

    1. The constitution of the Chinese living in Taiwan supports the integration of both Tibet and Mongolia into mainland China. While Tibetans suffer and die at the hands of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the Chinese in Taiwan support integrating Tibet into "One China".
    2. The Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai. (reference: "Sons of prominent Chinese team up on chip venture")
    3. Senior Chinese military officials retired from the Taiwanese military have gone to mainland China and given military secrets about the American F-16 fighter jet to the Beijing government. (reference: "Military secrets on sale to China")
    4. The Wall Street Journal reports that the majority of American spies who steal sensitive computer and military technology (like microprocessor blueprints) to give to mainland China are actually born and raised in Taiwan. Both spies mentioned in "Two Men Arrested for Planning to Smuggle High-Tech Encryption Devices to China" are born and raised in Taiwan.

    In other words, we Americans should blame ourselves. Why? American companies, especially those in Silicon Valley, employ hordes of Chinese from Taiwan. When they are given lucrative opportunities in mainland China, they will seize those opportunities. Some of those opportunities involve giving sensitive American technology to Beijing. We did this to ourselves; we made it easy for the Taiwanese to give American technology to Beijing.

    This hemorrhaging of technology will continue until we in the United States of America (USA) wake up. We should treat Taiwan as a province of China. When we slap punitive sanctions against China, we should also apply those sanctions against Taiwan. If we do not want to give sensitive technology to China, then we should not give sensitive technology to Taiwan. Period.

    Several companies in Silicon Valley prohibit Chinese nationals from working on technologies deemed sensitive by the American government. Yet, those very same companies readily employ Taiwanese nationals to work on the same sensitive technologies. Folks, let's wake up before the fire-breathing dragon burns us Americans along with the Tibetans.

  8. Yet Another Chinese "Opportunity" Evaporates by istartedi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is part of a trend. Everybody thought China would be this wide open market. All these people were salivating at the prospect of a billion customers. They all forgot that China is so big that they are likely to muster the ability to do it themselves. The same thing has already happened with cell phones.

    This also reminds me of a conversation I had in the early 90s with a room-mate who was an avid Free Trader. Me: "Why are we compromising our principles with China. We don't need them". Him: "We don't need them? They don't need us!". Me: "That's loser talk!". Him: "You're hopelessly backward and provincial...".

    In retrospect, we were probably both right; at least on the first exchange. We don't need China. They don't need us. Sheesh! Why is Slashdot such a dog lately. It won't let me preview posts...

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  9. "In line with the Chinese government's IT policy" by rocky28 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Did anybody else here read the article?

    Did this line send shivers down your spine?

    While I applaud the effort to give cheap computing to the underpriviliged masses in China, this may be cause for concern

    The fact that a government that still seems to be fairly interested in tramping on all forms of dissidence is involved enough with the OS and hardware so that it falls "in line with the Chinese government's IT policy", makes me a little nervous.

    This isn't unusual, MS has always tailored their products so that they fit in with the IT policies of western nations. But from what I have read, China has a somewhat different IT policy to many Western nations.

    An IT policy which drives everything underground, away from the policing ears.

  10. If they don't start a WAR with Taiwan. Maybe. by bobo333 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I would hope some of you can read this before Slashdot Censors mod this down to Flamebait.

    China is a ruthless communist dictatorship. They don't believe in bilateral trade. They are a parasitic trading country like alot of the ASIAN nations. They lure stupid American companies in the belief that with the lure of dirt cheap labor they will hit the gold mine. They forget that China is making moves to conquer another asian country . Also know that most of Chinese wealth can be attributed to allowing the brutal dictatorship free access to American markets while doing very little reciprical trade with the U.S. Why do we free trade with CHina and not Cuba or North Korea since they are all alike ?

  11. let see by Dumbush · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If I changes the wording a bit here, would it still make sense?

    the flagrant abuses of some South American countries that US has perpetrated since the 1950s are inexcusable. The fact that US is even allowed NEAR the United Nations is a gross mockery of justice.

    I know I'm evangelizing here, but people need to know that the wealthiset nation in the world is consider by many as more brutal and inhuman than Saddam Hussein's.

  12. Re:Sure i'll buy one by jcr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah, and Hitler built the Autobahn. So what?

    All of the statements above are true, but it is also true that the oligarchal theocracy of the Dalai Llama never had anyone killed for trying to leave the country.

    Also, you omitted the overriding reason for the invasion of Tibet: Mao needed to divert the attention of his subjects from his incompetence in agricultural policy, which was killing millions of chinese through starvation.

    Far better to gloat about how the Tibetans were "liberated" (and gloss over the fact that the subjects of the Mao Dynasty were just as much enslaved as the Tibetans had ever been), than to let people talk about how many villages had been wiped out by the PLA for having the affrontery to try to keep enough of their harvest to stay alive for another year.

    Mao was a very lucky thug. He was not a Great Man,but just a long-winded cuthroat at the right place and the right time to beat Stalin's record.

    You left-wing whiners sure like to cut history's greatest mass-murderer a lot of slack, don't you?

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  13. [M]architecture? by leandrod · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The title says it all. Any real info about what's the architecture (as in, is it x86, MIPS, SPARC, POWER, E2K?...), and how will it be marketed (clones vs proprietary, embedded vs general purpose, etc)?

    --
    Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
    DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
    GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
  14. Mod parent back up by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 0, Interesting

    The author of the above post makes some well-reasoned points. Those modding him down are not doing so because his post is a troll, but rather because they have agendas of their own. Unfortunately they chose the coward's method of combating an idea, rather than the method of tackling it head on with well-reasoned posts of their own.

    Frankly, as for the author's points, China is a totalitarian, aggresive, expansionist, military power. Technology leakage to China through Taiwan is a very real problem for the US and its allies. It's not a racist thing. It's realism. We don't, for example, worry so much about technology in the hands of the peaceful democratic country of South Korea.

    1. Re:Mod parent back up by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Look, I'm pretty much an isolationist. In fact, it's our military hegemony that makes China more of a threat to the US than to, say, Norway.

      But since you are an idiot, I'll say what you pretended I said the first time: "China is more expansionist than the US." It is. The character of China's wars are quite different from the US wars of the last several decades. The US hasn't had a frontier for a hundred years -- China however has numerous territorial designs. The US has enough territory. China doesn't. You are correct that the US has military bases around the globe. But they're just that, bases. They aren't there to oppress the local population. They aren't colonies. Hell, we even leave when the host nations tell us to (they don't because the bases bring them money and security).

      Now, if I were to say that "China is less peaceful than the US," I'd be wrong. But I didn't. Funny how that works.

      And the comma is correct. There is a difference between being an aggressive military power and an expansionist military power. I don't blame you for making an ass out of yourself with the 'sic.' Your having read into my post a million things that I didn't say gives me the impression that English is your second language anyway. Keep up the good work, it's a difficult language, but there are a lot of rewards.

    2. Re:Mod parent back up by GunFodder · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is factually incorrect. The US (unsuccessfully) invaded Cuba in 1961. Much more recently we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Every successful empire needs to expand in order to keep the plebians from revolting, and the US is no exception.

    3. Re:Mod parent back up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Look, I'm pretty much an isolationist. In fact, it's our military hegemony that makes China more of a threat to the US than to, say, Norway.

      Actually no, you're wrong here too. The thing that makes China more of a threat to the US than Norway is the fact that China has the second largest military budget in the world (1999 numbers) and more importantly, is growing its GDP at 10% a year ( knocked down to 8% for a quarter or two due to SARS ) and its industrial production at 16% a year. And if Norway tried anything funny, well hell just check the list, we'd start landing our forces at our air force bases there....

      The character of China's wars are quite different from the US wars of the last several decades. The US hasn't had a frontier for a hundred years

      No it hasn't. And the reason is that due to its wars over the last 200 years it reached what scientists call an "ocean", preventing it from further expansion. It's very technical. As for China's wars, it has fought wars over the last few decades with the same countries it has fought wars with over the last few millennia. Wake me up when China invades someplace that HASN'T already been part of the Chinese empire at some point or the other.

      Hell, we even leave when the host nations tell us to

      Tell it to the Vietmanese, tard boy.

  15. Hitachi Super H/H8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I don't count the NEC, Fujitsu and Sony stuff that is mentioned below because as you say, they were developed in the US and cloned or modified elsewhere.

    Hitachi H8/Super H (SH) is the most significant processor I can think of that didn't originate in the US. Many Japanese (and some Taiwanese, Chinese or Korean) companies prefer to use it because it is "homegrown". Thus it is used in many CD/DVD drives.

  16. Re:Sure i'll buy one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Wait some years until we forget about the recent (3 mo) facts.

    Then talk about invasions.

    |Right-wing idiot| = |Left-wing idiot|

  17. Re:Dragons /.'d Already by EinarH · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The last time this was up on slashdot someone mentioned performance equivalent to a Intel P2 450 MHz. Since this is a RISC CPU it will of course be stronger in diffrent areas but that is another discussion.

    But the real kicker with this CPU is the possibility for cheap dual and quad motherboards. If you can get 4 of these running under Linux or NetBSD the performance of one CPU don't mather that much. With a cost per CPU probably between $20-30* I would be all over tis offer.
    From a customers wiewpoint competition in the Quad-motherboard is appreciated as these MB's today cost insane amounts of money.

    All this depends on wheter they have added propper SMP support which is propably difficalt as they try to stay away of "IP" issues.

    *Wild guess of course, but they just can't cost above $30 if they expect them to sell in China.

    --

    Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.

  18. Re:Fire-Breathing Dragon Burns Americans and Tibet by andrewski · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For a country that is as backward as mainland China, possessing the ability to make a high-performance 32-bit pipelined microprocessor is a tad surprising.

    Hardly. You don't think that the Chinese know everything about the workings of CPU and RAM foundries in Taiwan? You realize that Taiwan is where much of our computer gear is manufactured.

    Whether you agree with the policies of the Chinese government, you must realize that China is one of the oldest civilizations in the whole world. America doesn't have exclusive rights to computing you know. Maybe they are tired of watching American companies flop around like beached salmon and want sustainable computing for themselves.

    Besides, the chip implements technology published as a standard. How could you call this stealing?

  19. Re:Sure i'll buy one by jcr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Would you then care to explain why Hitler's first order of business was to imprison/execute every communist in Germany?

    Woah, I guess you got me there! If Hitler killed communists, then he couldn't have been a socialist, huh?

    Wrong.

    Actually, killing the pinkos wasn't his first order of business, it's just that attacking the communists was a pretty easy sell at the time. (Just like it was easier to sell the idea of euthanasia of the handicapped, before gearing up for genocide.)

    Russia had been under Lenin, and then Stalin's yoke for quite a while by that point, and any idiot could see that communism was a Very Bad Idea.

    The reason that Hitler wanted the communists eliminated, is that they were a rival to his own brand of socialism. Communism and fascism both preached the supremacy of the collective (be it the Volk or the Proletariat) over the individual, and exhorted the unfortunate residents of the lands they siezed in their respective putsches to willingly die for the Führer and the Vaterland in the case of Germany, or for Stalin and the Rodina in the case of Russia.

    You may also take note, that religious zealots are generally more vicious with the heretic than the infidel. Heretics, being closer to one's own way, are more likely to win converts, and are thus a greater threat than out-and-out heathens. It's entirely normal for variants of one kind of institutionalized insanity (like the Nazis and the Commies) to be at each other's throats.

    Hitler's support among non-socialists, I attribute to desperation. Germany was in complete economic collapse, and the people were willing to turn to any vicious little thug who promised to get a lid on it all.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  20. Just had to troll! =) by shaggie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1. The simple act of being kicked out of Europe does not give you the right to take over the New World from the Natives.. BUT YOU DID!! and forced them into reservations for their own protection... =) (I'm not saying that is wrong either.. its a basic law of science by some dude they call darwin.. survival of the fittest or some crud)

    2. If you go back 5000 years, what is now known as China was actually many separate kingdoms, bout 8 or 9 and yes today's Tibet belonged to one of those kingdoms and the land of Tibet over the last 5000 years have been off and on, in and out of "China's" control. Some uprising here and there changes possession of control throughout the years. Look at the greeks, romans, normans, franks, etc.. they all did the same shit, so why is it that when China does it, China is the evil empire and when the europeans does it, its A-OK.

    China's autocratic regime does have its drawbacks, but then again it does have its usefulness. Many critics of the system based their assessment on the assumptions of their own environment and did not take into account the cultural, economical, educational differences.

    There are some ideas which we deem extremely previous which runs counters against other cultures and we think people who do not adopt what we deem precious is EVIL...(pinky to the lips!). Democracy is a system that can only work when education, cultural, and economic standards are of a level that can sustain a democratic system. Every other country that has tried to implement a democractic system that has not achieve a certain threshold in these categories have failed miserably. Taiwan, Russia, Japan, Indonesia, etc.. list goes on and on.

    3. The US government isn't good at fooling their own people with bold faced lies? Please google Bushism, it provides a good read to counter your arguments =). Not to mention that we are known for buying political, military and economical favors with our "AID" packages. recent examples.. turkey, pakistan, et al. let us use your land as base for our iraq campaign and we promise give you X billion (in fine print but we will have to get congressional approval in addition to the presidential promise, so the AID package MIGHT not be there). So we just package our lies a little better but what's the difference?

    4. Regarding vietnam, my understanding was due to political and social reasons, the government never commited enough military support to make the war winnable, all the hippie protests (really just an excuse to say FUCK over a PA system a lot, get alot of people in one place to have free casual sex and complain at the government imo), the morale issue of the soldiers there where it seems that most of them don't know why the fuck are they doing in the jungles of vietnam. The US finally left because it became too economically, and politically unsustainable for them to continue in vietnam. Thus vietnam became the only war in modern history that the US technically lost, now if the US actually focused the entire might of its military powers in vietnam, there won't be tributes to uncle ho in vietnam right now. There'll be an american flag there instead.

    5. Based on what I have read of ancient and modern historical text (last 4500 years) Other than wars within the area in what is known as China today, the "Chinese" has never actually invaded another country. (Parts of North Korea was actually part of China off and on over history). The japanese and korean kingdoms also deferred to the decisions of the chinese emperors and used the chinese emperors as leverage politically in their own kingdoms. You can find references to that in many of the historical accounts.

    China has also never engaged in colonialism even though they had more than enough power militarily to do so in the past. In the Ming dynasty, a fleet that contained over 100 ships set sail under the command of Admiral Cheng Ho. He visited many places and iirc went all the way to Africa. Whenever he arrived at a new place, instead of setting up colonies, he did a PR camp