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Where's Alviso?
DMOS writes "Intel's 'Dothan' processor for moblile computers has finally seen the light of day, but where is the rest of the 'Sonoma' platform? Specifically, the 'Alviso' chipset that is replacing the current i855 and ICH4m. So far it appears to be MIA, and Devhardware looks into why with
their 'Where's
Alviso?' article."
Come off Hwy 101 in Sunnyvale, take Hwy 237 East and head for Milpitas. I think.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Alviso's just north of San Jose, but legally speaking is part of San Jose. Silicon Valley tried to grow north of hwy237 during the .BOOM years, but didn't quite make it, and the predicted swamping of alviso by outsiders didn't quite happen.
Alviso is where TiVO is headquartered.
http://www.alviso.com/
Take 101 to 237 east until you smell it.
RTFA. Pay your respects. Many Dothans died for this information.
Moo.
> What's down the pike, Rethan, Mithan, Fathan, Sothan,
Sorry; I think that's based on a bad parse. More likely will be Dotchewy, Dotluke, Dotleia, Dotbobba, Dotdarth, Dotstormtrooper#3,
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
My guess is that Dothan may be held up as well pending GX-NX flag compatibility, without which there's no way to take full advantage of XP SP2 anyway and so nobody will buy.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Intel has always been somewhat embarrassed about the Pentium M series of microprocessors. Basically a Pentium M, whether a Banias or Dothan, (both of which are named after rivers in Israel) is more an heir of the Pentium III architecture than the P4. Yet, the Pentium M, clock for clock, does more work and stays cooler than the P4.
A Pentium M desktop would be great, and it looks like Alviso is that very desktop. It would be ideal for quiet media boxes and transportable LAN party machines. However, I am sure that one of the reasons why Intel is dragging its feet is this: to put out a desktop Pentium M board would be an admission of just how much of a disappointment the P4 architecture has been.
Perhaps Intel should look towards Micro-ITX and Nano-ITX applications of this technology as well. I'm sure that the existing Centrino chipset would be ideal for such mini-boxen.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
yep. There it is.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Alviso is right on the Southern tip of the San Francisco Bay. It's mostly abandoned but for a few hold outs like Vahl's Restaurant. There's an bartender named Frank there who's straight out of a Rat Pack movie. Ask him to do some magic tricks for you.
Most of Alviso is now a briney marsh due to redirection of Bay water, dikes, and nearby salt evaporation pools. On summer evenings, the sound of crickets and frogs in the reeds can be deafening.
For those brave enough to visit, it's off the 237 next to Tivo's office.
it seems that most of the technologies the new laptop chipset will enable are grossly overrated, wildly overpriced, and won't generally be worthwhile for laptop owners not running Longhorn
Naturally, Sony will be all over this one.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Alviso has left the building.
Yes, TiVo is there. Smelly as hell, but cool... You can see what happens to a harbor when you stop dredging it. Alviso has a an undredged harbor.
Seriously.
I've seen many posts on "where's alviso" but lets take a moment to talk about what alviso really is.
Alviso used to be a boat landing for "The Valley of Hearts Delights" elite long before it became the foul smelling place that it is today. Santa Clara County built a sewage treatment plant there, and coincidentally, the elite did not like mooring up to a dock that constantly smelled like human excrement.
Later the alviso landfill was built, to even further add to the cornicopia of smells that arose from that stinky marsh.
Eventually alviso was populated by low income families (GANG BANGERS) and the SJ Norte's. The whole town fell into complete disrepair and despite the cities best efforts to convert it into a low lease technology park, it still remains what it is.
The armpit of silicon valley.
From the article:
Next in the Centrino is its Wi-Fi ability. Currently, Centrino makes use of the 802.11b standard. In Sonoma, that's being upgraded to 802.11g.
The author fails to note that Intel has already released the Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG (802.11g) and that it is a Centrino component.
My laptop has one from the factory and is badged "Centrino."
Probabaly in the same location as my socks.
(Btw, cheap plug: If you know anyone hiring programmers, system admins, network admins or Linux coders in the Portland, Oregon region, I have plenty of experience in all of the above, and am looking for work. Here endeth the cheap plug.)
I won't mention any specifics, but I had a number of problems coaxing Fedora to run on a Dothan board, under stress. The Linux 2.4 kernel was the worst for just locking up solid, but I locked up the 2.6 kernel on a daily basis under conditions I would have expected it to work.
It's hard to tell if the problems were with the Dothan board or with Fedora, or with some combination of the two. Also, I was using an early development board, so there's no certainty (without testing) that the problems exist in the released system.
If you're wanting to use Dothan with Linux for development, I would advise against using the Linux 2.4 kernel at all, and would suggest testing a little more thoroughly than you might otherwise do to make sure everything is working as you'd expect.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Where's Alviso?
(hint for the cluebies: You are seeking out THIS street map, around 8 feet tall, standing among the peeps.)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
If they want DDR2 and PCI-E on a laptop so badly, what's stopping them from using a 925X? No, it wouldn't be Centrino, but you COULD throw a Dothan (or any P4, be it Socket 423, 478, or LGA775) on that chipset.