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AMD Buys Pre-VIA Cyrix Media-GX Division
An anonymous reader writes "A long time ago, in what feels like a different universe, Cyrix created the first sub-$1000 PC based on a 2 chip solution called the Media-GX. Soon after National Semiconductor bought Cyrix, keeping the Media-GX team and selling the 686MX team to VIA.
In the meantime, the Media-GX team have created the a series of single chip PCs, and a totally new CPU, the GX2. Now National Semiconductor is
selling the division to AMD, which should give it a higher profile and better fab technology again."
Reader jlouderb reminds us of National Semiconductor's Device Girls promotion, "a lame take-off on the Spice Girls," and points to coverage at eWeek of the purchase.
It even has a picture of the Media-GX in there.
Ugh, can't anyone appeal to common sense instead of sex drive? Make way for bad hardware related puns.
They certainly looked better than the Spice Girls. I bet they sounded better, too, though who cares about that. :)
Am I the only one who thought of "Device Girls" as those unenlightened females who prefer various mechanical devices over us virile geeks?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Perhaps what AMD wants is not their CPU, but the stuff that they've integrated in with it to create a single-chip PC. In a year or so, we might see a single-chip system based on one of the AMD processors.
Please, do not revive the old jokes about mount and devices.
We've all read the sigs about the subject.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
What does this mean for National Semiconductor's analog processing business?
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
This story reminded me of an article from the Register about how some analysts think IBM will eventually buy AMD. Didn't IBM used to sell Cyrix chips or something?
They were the first true 2-chip(CPU+Northbridge and a Southbridge) Computers for failed Information Appliance market (IE Audrey,Virgin Webplayer, ETc). Very small, cheap, and power effecient. I have a Webplayer that I modded to run RH as a Mp3 player and Digital picture frame with WiFi and it only uses 25 watts including monitor!!
Science is the Real TRUTH!
a chipset company, and/or a motherboard company, and someone to clarify the cpu naming mombo-jumbo! Confusion is not the way to compete!
(offtopic, I know, just venting)
I'd go online with them any day! Reeeeoow!
I bought a montherboard with a 166+ 686 CPU from Cyrix. It worked better and lasted longer than the Gateway pentium 166 boxes we had at work. Alas, my rommate spilled a pot of coffee on the bugger and it died with a POP, a SNAP and a SIZZLE. From what I learned, there were two versions of that chip. Version 1 overheated a lot, but if you kept it cool it was fine. Verion 2 didn't overheat, but flaked and flaked and flaked until you wanted to beat it with a bat. My sis wanted a box and I got her a $199 PC with a Cyrix MII 333 chip a few years later. Mistake. 'nuf said. End of my Cyrix experience.
For what it's worth, Google is your friend
AMD will not use the 80x86 division of NSM to create a 80x86 embedded processor. 80x86 chips fare poorly in the embedded market, which is dominated by ARM.
that with a few changes, it would be as if somebody forgot to turn caps lock off.
In that article National mentions the sub-$1000 PC business as one of their main areas of further interest. With this sale of the Geode, etc... I wonder how many more could be laid off and where National is looking for the future?
Where the Music Matters
ya gotta be compatible
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Does AMD's purchase of low-power technology have anything to do with this?
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
What was National Semiconductor trying to tell us? That the Device Girls had some "powerful hardware?" No thanks, I think I'll pass. It would have made me feel bad about my own puny hardware.
I just remembered I still have some crappy webplayer pics on my site. Enjoy
Motherboard
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48meg Disk on Chip
Overclockable
Science is the Real TRUTH!
There is no tubgirl. Worry not.
You say
I still have one configured as a simple dialout box. It works well and shares dialup service with an ethernet card.
The other, I may have fried. The new XFree86-4 stuff pumped it's video to 90 Hz! This is far in excess of the orignial specs. I put in antoher cooling fan for the second chipset, but shorted 12 while it was running. I have not fooled with it since, but it did not come back. It may be that I fried the board, it may be that I fried the power supply. One day, I'll check it out again. Today, I don't really need it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This looks like it could directly compete with the EPIA Mini-ITX. I don't know what the fastest media gx core is, but it would be cool if AMD released a Mini-ITX board based around it. Especially if it could be done cheaper than the VIA board.
I remember Alan Cox stating that he was using a Media-GX based system to write and test the soundblaster layer for linux because the media-GX was a better fit to the SB standard then any of Creatives then current chips. He reasoned that if he could get closer to the origional standard then most clones would work, and aparantly he was right =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Is an AMD K6-III (not K6-III+) 400 MHz 2.0 v processor, on an FIC VA-503+ mother board, which runs a VIA chip set, of course.
In terms of uptimes on my samba file server and NAT box, in terms of working with whatever card I shoved in it (BIOS upgrades for the newer stuff, of course), in terms of working with cheap shitty memory (after slowing the PC-100 RAM to 95 MHz), it just works. I have a stacks of junk Intel shit that works great until I actually wanted to put a Promise RAID card in it, works great until except you can't put a PCI video card in the first PCI slot, it has to be the second, works great except that it doesn't work great. It sucks.
The ABIT KT7 with an Athlon or Duron approached the VA-503 / K6 combo in flexibility. I like those. Above that, getting into the 2 GHz and up boards and chips, nothing stands up to my standard of "working". Anytime you try to do something slightly weird (plug in several USB cards, and use the built-in, to load dozens of USB key chains at once with demo crap to be passed out as doorprizes at a conference, for example) something just doesn't work, you start fiddling, and next thing you know it is 7 pm and you are calling you wife telling her not to expect you in before midnight.
People at work make fun of my bench with 4 VA-503+'s in their ancient AT cases, and my stack of spare 503 boards in cardboard boxes. But they don't complain when I get shit done on time.
I'm looking forward to the next really reliable setup. What I would like to do is discover a cheap mini-ITX with that slow-ass VIA C3 chip on it that was cheap and low powered enough that I could just have dozens of them, esentially haveing a separate computer for each little task. I doubt it however. It just shifts a lot of problematic issues over to the network configuration.
Where are the world's Fabs?
Da Blog
But there's more! it's not just video on the CPU, it's the north AND south bridges! The CPU, GPU, memory controller, PCI controller, and who-knows-what-else are on this bad-boy! I've been wanting this sort of thing for a long time!
I understand that the price will be longer development cycles and raw performance, but there are a LOT of uses for machines based on this type of thinking. Imagine how inexpensive PCs based on this type of thing could get, and how little power they would require! If managers get their heads around the idea of centralized computing again (as they should in the office) we're going to see huge demand for inexpensive fast-enough graphical terminals.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
the first machine i bought with my own money was a 486dx2/66 with a cyrix chip.....ah the memories....
the last i saw it it was still working as a proxy server at my last job.
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
AMD is capable of making their own motherboards and chipsets, and usualy does when they come out with new CPUs. But they don't ship them for very long, figuring that it's better to have the taiwanese board and chipset makers on their side, as allies.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
crazy on-crack moderators, why... well... actually that was kind of off topic. oh well. Topicality is the bane of human existence. We aren't little robots who live only to discuss narrowly defined fields at the appropriate time. Humans need to laugh, to joke, and to love, and promote products in inappropriate venues.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The p4 is designed for a insane clock speeds, but CMOS chips dissipate no power until the clock changes. The faster the clock speed, the more energy it uses. Designing with a low clock speed/performance ratio could probably yield lower power use. Hmm...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Via already does this with their EIPA chips, built in video and everything, IIRC.
I wouldn't be suprised if NVida comes out with a high performance system though, with their expansion into chipsets.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It's made for non 'hardcore' mags like penthouse or something, which are sold at gas stations and the like. If they have really hardcore stuff they might loose the ability to sell in lots of locations. I think a lot of times porn like that is scanned from old magazines or something, because I have no idea why you would ever make porn like that for the 'net.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Where is Ginger Device?
There are imitations of Baby, Scarry, Sporty, and Posh. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. I want Ginger Device!!!!!!!
I sure would like those ladies to give me a little personal demonstration on I/O, packets, mounting, and of course FSCK!!!!!
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Don't AMD me, you silly bastards. AMD my Cyrix MediaGX 150MHz processor back to life!
I suspect many here are reading far too much into this news. Nat. Semi. was trying to sell this unit to shed costs, i.e. it probably wasn't (very) profitable. Thus, the asking price probably wasn't for very much cash. Who knows, they might even have gotten stock instead. Details weren't disclosed today, so there's no way to prove this either way, yet.
In contrast, with Geode under AMD's control, there's a reasonable amount of overlap with AMD's Alchemy unit. They will be able to shed a lot of overhead in salaries and facilities. So maybe the Geode group breaks even or makes a small profit for AMD.
Overall though, it's probably not an earth shattering development. Now if it had been Transmeta, it might be a different story... fast-tracked ultra-low power x86-64 laptops and blades... hmmmm.
Well, they may have been going for the IP and the tech involved in the chip as well. They may scrap it, then make something similar that doesn't suck, especially if there are patents involved.
If Media-GX is the only single-chip computer really out there, there most likely are some patents in it.